Home Fires Read online

  Chapter 12

  Way back when, Matt Davis would rush home from a business trip, hardly able to stand it. The ride from Kennedy to Gramercy Park, those slow forty minutes, when he could practically feel Anne, were the worst part. The time would tick by as the car sped through Queens, with Manhattan right in sight, so near and yet so far. He had minded every second he was apart from Anne. For ten years, without abatement, he had pined for her when they were apart.

  Later, after he’d fallen in love with Tisa, it had been the same way. On trips when he couldn’t take her along, he would go nuts waiting to see her again. That first blush of erotic love was a powerful thing.

  But now the first blush was over. He and Tisa had fallen into a routine not unlike that of long-married couples. They had gotten together about a year ago, been living together since September. She took his shirts to the laundry, his suits to the dry cleaner; from his trips, he now brought her duty-free scarves instead of jewelry. He had expected the love rush to thicken, to slow down a bit. He had not expected it to dry up. For him, at least, it had disappeared.

  Now that Matt had a little objectivity, now that he could weigh the two relationships, he could see that he’d made the mistake of his life.

  There wouldn’t be ten years worth of pining for Tisa when he couldn’t be with her.

  He was with her now, in a cab stuck in Park Avenue traffic. They were late to some black-tie charity thing being thrown at the Waldorf by an old classmate of hers, and she was angry and hurt because he had taken so long getting ready. Because he hadn’t wanted to go in the first place.

  “Will you try to have a good time?” she asked, and there was more hurt in her voice than anger.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “It’s just that Trisha’s never met you, and I want her to see how wonderful you are.”

  Matt slid his hand across the seat, to take hers. She was radiant tonight in a white Chanel party dress and black velvet cape. She was wearing the diamond-and-emerald necklace he had bought her last May at Fred’s in Paris, the pearl earrings he had given her on her birthday in Rome last July, and a cheap silk carré from one of last year’s stock he’d picked up just before his flight home this morning. It was two A.M. French time; he knew he should feel jet-lagged, but he was too wired.

  Anne had a boyfriend.

  He had found out just hours earlier when he’d called Gabrielle from the Concorde. Some local guy Anne hardly knew. The two elements of Gabrielle’s description of him that Matt had registered were “clockmaker” and “burn scars.” The only way Matt could imagine Anne with a man like that was if she felt sorry for him. With her heart, and after what she’d been through with Karen, she’d be a soft touch for anyone with a sob story.

  “Trisha’s great,” Tisa was saying, “and you’ll love her husband. Shippen Maynard? He’s practically the head of ITX.”

  “I know who Shipp Maynard is,” Matt said, picturing the pretentious blowhard. With his Hong Kong suits, his custom-built shoes, his manicures and wavy silver hair. The ex-marine had a keg head and barrel chest, he was known for telling tales about the women in his life. He was not, as Anne had once said, a nice man.

  “God, all you scions of industry know each other,” Tisa said, her pretty laugh tinkling, telling him that she was over being mad. “I know, you all belong to the same club.”

  Matt laughed because, in this case, it was true. The Racquet and Tennis Club, just a few blocks south of where they were now. The cab crept through in traffic, a roiling sea of yellow cabs, all honking their horns and nudging each other. Sharks in a feeding frenzy.

  “Remind me how you know Trisha?” he asked, to get his mind off Anne and the man.

  “We were models together at the same agency.”

  “That’s right. I was thinking you knew her from school.”

  “No. She’s actually a few years older than me. Don’t tell her—she’d kill me. But she’s thirty-one.”

  “Horrors,” Matt said.

  “We had this booking together, it was a riot. On the beach in Miami, and I’m talking pre-chic Miami, when there were Cubans just everywhere and no cute hotels. We were doing swimsuits for Vogue, and that’s when I got picked for Sports Illustrated and at first she didn’t, but then she did because it turns out …”

  Matt stopped hearing her voice. He suddenly remembered something that had happened on this exact block, five years earlier, in another yellow cab stuck in traffic heading uptown instead of down.

  Anne was pregnant with Karen. She was four months along, and she had an ultrasound scheduled that afternoon. Matt had come home at lunch so he could go to the doctor with her.

  Entering their apartment, he had found Anne sitting on the floor with her glass, a pitcher of water, and a Xeroxed list of instructions. Anne was an obstetrician’s dream. She followed her directions to the letter.

  Catching sight of her, Matt felt his heart flip. She was his dream, pregnant with their child. Rounder than she had ever been or would be again, she had reminded Matt of a Raphael Madonna. All softness and goodness and maternal love, and somehow so sexy that all he wanted to do was take her to bed.

  “You have to drink all that?” Matt had asked in disbelief, watching her down glass after glass of what seemed to be gallons of water.

  “I need a full bladder,” Anne had replied. “It’ll push up the uterus so Dr. Ventura can get a good reading on the baby. I think we’ll find out the sex today.”

  It was one of their few disagreements during the pregnancy. Matt had wanted to wait until the delivery room, for the great traditional moment when the doctor would hold up their baby saying “It’s a … !” Anne had argued that the baby was growing in her body, and she wanted to know everything that was happening the first possible moment. In the end, Anne would win out. And Matt wouldn’t mind at all.

  When she had finished drinking all her water, they went down to the street. They walked around the corner, along East Twenty-first Street, and Matt hailed a cab. Anne was in a great mood. She looked beautiful, very happy, and she was telling Matt about ideas she had for the baby’s nursery.

  Anne, who, even when not pregnant, was known for having to make frequent bathroom stops during any long trip, who on childhood car rides had been called “pea bladder” by Gabrielle, now seemed completely unaffected by all the water she had drunk.

  “Are you okay?” Matt kept asking as the cab sped north on Park Avenue.

  “I’m fine,” she reassured him. She was fine through the Thirties, fine through the tunnel, fine as the cab snaked past Grand Central, around the Pan Am Building.

  “You’re still okay?” Matt asked when the cab emerged on the other side.

  “I’ll be glad to get there,” Anne said, and for the first time her smile showed strain.

  “On the double,” Matt said to the cabdriver.

  Traffic was moving, and they were nailing all the lights. Clear sailing, no stops all through the Fifties. They had to go only six more blocks to Sixty-sixth Street.

  “I’m not going to make it,” Anne said, her eyes watering, as if the level of fluid in her body had risen into her head.

  “Think of the desert,” Matt said. “Dry sand. The Gobi Desert. Morocco. Las Vegas.”

  They hit some traffic, and they got a red light at Sixty-first Street. Anne clutched the seat, her eyes closed.

  “Can you walk it?” he asked. She shook her head without opening her eyes, furrows in her forehead.

  When the car started creeping along, Anne looked at Matt as if she needed him to throw her a lifeline.

  “Tell him to pull over,” she said.

  “You’re going to be fine,” he said. “It’s just a few more blocks.”

  “I can’t.” She had her hand on the door handle, ready to jump out of the car.

  “Try, honey.”

  “Okay. But listen: if we hit one more red light between here and the office, he has to pull over.”

  “Deal,” Matt said, and
he had no doubt that Anne was prepared to stand on the side of Park Avenue, pull down her pants, and urinate. He had never loved her more.

  They made it. Anne ran into the office, past a legion of pregnant women, calling over her shoulder to the receptionist that she needed to use the bathroom.

  “Pee to the count of ten and then hold it!” the receptionist yelled after her.

  That was the day they learned they were going to have a girl.

  Now in a cab with Tisa, traffic was beginning to move. Matt stared at Dr. Ventura’s building, remembering that day. Anne’s spirit, her incredible valor as a human water balloon. She had savored every minute of her pregnancy and motherhood, even the most ignominious.

  He wondered whether Anne had registered the fact that Dr. Ventura had sent flowers last August. To commemorate the death of a child she had brought into the world.

  Matt sighed.

  “God, we’re going to be late,” Tisa said. She took a compact from her purse and checked her makeup.

  “I’m sorry I was so slow,” Matt said.

  “I’m so proud to be with you,” Tisa said, her eyes wide and hesitant, like a fawn’s. Perhaps she had picked up on his mood. He squeezed her hand.

  Tisa gave him a restrained peck on the mouth, as if her lips had shock absorbers. She had lived in New York long enough to know that you don’t kiss in taxicabs, that the wrong pothole could knock out two sets of perfect teeth. It’s funny, Matt thought. He and Anne had made out in cabs all the time.

  “How do I look?” Tisa asked worriedly as the cab swung around the island, pulling up at the Waldorf.

  “Stunning,” Matt said, taking in her beauty. Her long blond hair, her widely spaced almond eyes, her full mouth, her lovely, graceful neck.

  “Tonight will be fantastic,” she said, grazing his cheek with her own.

  Matt paid the driver, and they climbed out of the car as another couple at the head of the taxi line jumped in. Matt tipped the doorman. His arm lightly around Tisa’s waist, he followed her into the hotel lobby.

  Tisa held their invitation in white-gloved hands. Standing side by side, they read the placard announcing that the Literacy for Homeless benefit was being held in the Starlight Ballroom. They piled into an elevator with fifteen people Matt vaguely recognized, and they disembarked on the eighteenth floor.

  Matt took Tisa’s cape to the coat check and put the ticket in his pocket. She stood in the foyer, as beautiful as a woman could be.

  “Excuse me, darling,” he said to her. “I need to make a quick call. In the excitement of coming home, I seem to have forgotten something important. A client.”

  “Matt! I’m not walking in there without you.”

  “How about powdering your nose? I’ll be done in a minute.”

  Shaking her head, she gave him a long, fearful look. Then, realizing that people might be watching, she composed herself and strode off, with the poise of the runway model that she was, into the ladies’ room. Matt headed for the bank of phones.

  He dialed the island number Gabrielle had given him. Anne had rented an apartment in town, right at the head of Transit Street. Matt could actually picture her building. It was across from Ruby’s, up the street from Atwood’s, their favorite island restaurant.

  The phone rang and rang. He checked his watch: eight-thirty. He counted twenty rings, and then he saw Tisa coming toward him.

  “Tell him I’ll call back tomorrow,” he said into the ringing phone for Tisa’s benefit. “Thank you.”

  “All done?” she asked as he replaced the receiver.

  “I told you it would be quick,” Matt said. Then, lightly touching the small of her back, he escorted Tisa into the Starlight Ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria.

  THOMAS and Ned Devlin spent Ned’s first two nights on the island together, just the two of them: steaks on the grill, along with hours of conversation and plans for Ned’s future the first night, a night in town for pizza, beer, and pool the second.

  Ned beat Thomas two straight games, and then they returned to their table to polish off the Last Call Saloon’s Famous Anchovy and Extra Extra Garlic Pizza. Extra Large.

  “I send you to the best prep school money can buy, and they teach you to hustle pool,” Thomas Devlin said.

  “Yeah, they call me ‘Hialeah.’”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you take their money?”

  “I’ll put it this way. I haven’t had to buy my own lunch off campus all year.”

  “Well, well,” Thomas said admiringly. Ned never ceased to surprise him. Sometimes he seemed so absurdly young and innocent, you’d never suspect him of turning into a first-rate pool player. Thomas knew pool; he’d practically grown up in a Dorchester pool hall. It’s where he had first met firefighters, and he associated the game with respect for the men. It was good to know his son could play as well.

  “You’re a little rusty,” Ned said, drinking his beer. Narragansett, on draft. Bobby, the bartender, knew that Ned was underage, but whenever Ned came in with his father, Bobby would give him two glasses on the house.

  “I don’t play much anymore.”

  “You should. You’re the best.”

  Thomas Devlin shrugged. “Too many other things to do.”

  “I know what you mean,” Ned said wisely, in such a man-to-man tone that Thomas had to smile.

  “It’s nearly time to start the vegetable garden,” Thomas said. “I started some tomatoes from seed, down in the basement, and I’ve got a big order coming on a boat next week. Lots of spicy stuff this year. Jalapeños, cherry peppers, broccoli rabe, a new purple basil.”

  “Pumpkins?”

  “Of course.”

  “Gardening’ll keep you busy,” Ned said.

  “It sure will,” Thomas agreed, signaling Bobby for two more beers.

  “I was wondering… .” Ned said.

  “Anything you want to know about pool or vegetables, I’m your man,” Thomas said.

  “Actually,” Ned said, “I was wondering whose toothbrush that is. The blue one, all wrapped in a washcloth in the back of the medicine cabinet.”

  “Oh, boy,” Thomas said.

  The day of Ned’s arrival, Thomas had straightened up the house, hiding all evidence of Anne. It wasn’t that he intended to keep her a secret; he just wanted to break it to Ned slowly. After Ned had been home for a few days, four or five, Thomas had planned to mention casually that he had a good friend named Anne, and how would Ned feel about having her over for dinner?

  “Is she nice?” Ned asked.

  “Very.”

  “She’s the one you were thinking about when we toured the colleges?”

  “How could you tell?” Thomas asked, stunned.

  “Dad, I’m not blind. There’s nothing but hormones gone rampant at Deerfield—I know the signs.”

  “I was planning to tell you, Ned.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve felt bad for you. You’ve been so nervous. So, what’s she like?”

  “Her name is Anne Davis. She’s very beautiful, and kind. She’s been through as much as we have.” He paused. “I love her.”

  Ned nodded, playing with the salt-and-pepper shakers, taking in the news. Maybe Thomas should have held back that last part; maybe it was too much for Ned to handle. He scrutinized his son for a reaction.

  “No one could ever take your mother’s place, you know that,” Thomas said. “I wouldn’t want anyone to.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Anne’s very different from your mother.”

  “Like how?”

  “Well, she’s small, for one thing,” he said, thinking of Sarah. Sarah had been nearly six feet tall, a magnificent athlete. She had skied in the Olympics, and Thomas could see her now, schussing the chute at Mad River Glen. Then, later, taking it easier (although not much) with Ned in a pack on her back.

  “And Anne’s pretty quiet,” Thomas said.

  “Mom wasn’t quiet,” Ned said, chuckling.
>
  “You can say that again,” Thomas said, wishing Ned would laugh a little harder. Ned’s laugh was a direct echo of Sarah’s. Sarah had loved to sing and talk and laugh, often all at the same time. It was a lot like living with a perpetual pep talk: exhaustingly lovable.

  “It’s been nice,” Thomas said, “having a friend.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “How about you?” Thomas asked, thinking maybe Ned wanted to steer them off the topic. “Do you have any special girl?”

  “No.”

  “Ah. Well, you will. I have no doubt about that.”

  “When do I get to meet her?” Ned asked after a moment.

  “How about dinner tomorrow night?”

  Ned seemed to consider this. Thomas couldn’t quite read his face. There was a definite frown. His brows were knit, his mouth slightly downturned. But Thomas would have to call the expression thoughtful, pensive, rather than angry.

  “We should make black-bean burritos,” Ned said. “With that green salsa.”

  “I’m not sure we can get cilantro at such short notice. We usually have to give the market a head start on special stuff like that.”

  “Can you grow cilantro?”

  “Sure,” Thomas Devlin said, flushing with love and gratitude for his incredible son. “I’ll add it to the list for next week.”

  “We should do fire nachos,” Ned said. “With double jalapeños. Does she like hot food?”

  “I think so,” Thomas Devlin replied, although actually he was unsure.

  “She’d better,” Ned said. “The true test.”

  ANNE arrived at the appointed hour, ready for dinner. Parking her car, she took her time. She watched the house for signs of someone curiously peeking out, and she thought she saw a shadow fall across the kitchen window.

  It had been a very long time since she had dressed so carefully for an evening. She had tried on and decided against black suede pants, a denim skirt, her oldest jeans and a sweatshirt, and a Putamayo black-and-white print dress. Instead, she wore newish black Gap jeans, a chambray shirt, and a tweed jacket. She recognized that she had chosen clothes that would be nonthreatening, but relatively attractive, to a teenage boy.