A Charmed Place (39 page)

Maddie said quickly, "I'll take this in the other room," and left the three of them standing around in sudden, awkward silence.

Behind her she heard Norah speak first. "I came here to pick up the lighthouse slides that Maddie used in her presentation."

"She's just remembered some new photos; ask her about 'em."

And then Maddie was out of earshot, left to deal with a call that seemed out of the Twilight Zone.

Michael got straight to the point. "Well, well. It sounds like you're having a merry old time over there, so I won't keep you. I just wanted to 'fess up. Last night I had business that ran over schedule. I wasn't able to pick Tracey up from her party until much later than I'd planned, and then when she told me she'd promised to call you, well, I panicked. I told her to fudge the time we got back. I'm sorry. But I didn't want you getting your nose out of joint the way you always do—"

"So it was
your
idea?
You
got her to lie to me?"

Oh, how she didn't want this call!

"All I'm saying is don't blame Tracey. She was doing it for me, Maddie. To protect me."

"And you're telling me this—why? To make me feel better about your parenting skills?"

She couldn't help it. The sound of his voice, the perennial excuses, the candid, whining dishonesty—she was sensitized, no doubt about it.

And now came the petulance. "I
said
I was sorry," he muttered through obviously gritted teeth.

Mentally, Maddie was throwing up her hands. "What exactly do you expect me to do about this, Michael?"

"Nothing! That's the point! I don't want you taking it out on Tracey!"

"Then why put her in a position to lie in the first place?"

"I
told
you—! Oh, shit, you're not listening to a thing I say. Never mind."

She could feel her exasperation with him bubbling over. She didn't want to take potshots at him; ideally, she wanted nothing to do with him. Over the last four years she had made an effort, and had succeeded, in letting go of her anger at him. But he was still Tracey's father; she had no choice but to keep engaging in the same weary dialogue, call after call after call. They were prisoners of a failed marriage, bound to one another by the shackle of their child.

"
I was prepared for Tracey to wheedle you into letting her stay late," Maddie said, dropping her voice low. "I was even prepared for her to lie about when she did get home. I wasn't surprised when you seemed to back her up. But I have to admit, Michael, it never occurred to me that
you'd
be the one to force
her
to lie."

He answered in one of his typical nonsequiturs. "What did you expect her to do?" he said. "Take a cab?"

"Where were you that you couldn't get her back until two in the morning? Obviously you weren't chaperoning the party. God only knows who was!"

She was assuming he'd been with a woman and was surprised when he said, almost eagerly, "I've been working on this project with Geoff Woodbine. It's a big, big deal and it went pretty well last night. The bunch of us went out for a few drinks afterward to celebrate."

"Oh, well! Why didn't you say so in the first place? I feel a lot better now! Geoffrey Woodbine? What in God's name have you got yourself into, Michael?"

The sound of his silence thundered in her ears.

"Calling to apologize was a mistake, I see," he said at last in a wounded voice. "I wanted to do the right thing
... I wanted to be aboveboard
... and this is your reaction. Screaming at me like a banshee."

"Michael, believe me, I'm not screaming." In fact, she was whispering. She'd be mortified if anyone in the kitchen overheard her end of the conversation. "Can I talk to Tracey, please?"

"She went off with a couple of girlfriends to the Common," he said sullenly.

"Michael! You let her go off on her own?"

"For chrissake, why not? It's broad daylight out!"

"That's not the point; she's supposed to be grounded except under supervision!"

"That was your idea. You raise her your way and I'll raise her mine! Damn! Why did I bother calling you? Because I was feeling bad
... feeling bad
... so I thought—"

He hung up. Without a good-bye, without having a clue what Maddie was trying to say, he hung up.

She really
had
fallen into the Twilight Zone, and now she found herself groping, trying to get out. On the one hand, everything Michael had said sounded more or less reasonable. On the other hand, it all
felt
desperately false and wrong. Was it her or was it him?

Despite the jarring call, Maddie wanted desperately to salvage some of the happiness she'd been sharing with Dan and her friends, so she took a deep breath, fluffed up her hair, and marched back out to the kitchen.

But it was obvious, even before she entered the room, that the mood had shifted. Norah, Dan, and Joan were speaking in quiet murmurs, the way they would at a wake for someone they didn't know well.

"Hey, sorry about the interruption," she said with a kind of br
azen cheerfulness. "
Where were we?''

It didn't work.

"Actually, we're going to leave you two lovebirds in peace," Norah said, setting her coffee mug in the sink. "I've invited a couple of fat cats over to my house for lunch, and before I shake them down for contributions, I thought I'd give them a special showing of the lighthouse dog-and-pony show. I'll need the slide carousel?"

"Oh
... sure
... it's on the desk in my bedroom. Dan, would you get it for Norah? And I'll run down to the basement and bring up my dad's photo album. I can't believe I forgot about the snapshots there."

By the time Maddie came back upstairs, Norah had the carousel in her arms and was standing with Joan at the Dutch door, acting as if she had a plane to catch. Maddie laid two thick photo albums on top of the slides and said, "The shots of the lighthouse being closed up are in one or the other of these; that year was a two-album summer."

Norah tried to lighten the mood by saying, "Your father was an amazing man. I don't know where he got all the energy—or the film."

Nonetheless, some of the pall that Michael's call had thrown over the group lingered as Norah kissed Maddie on her cheek, and then Dan. She had one hand on the screen door when she turned back to them and said in a pensive voice, "Don't you wonder why we're bothering to move the damn thing? It was in tough shape even before the lightning and the fire... and when you get right down to it, the entire
Cape
will be washed away in a few thousand years in any case."

After they left, Dan said, "Wow. Talk about mood swings. What just happened here?"

"Two words," Maddie
said, whacking one of her hard-
boiled eggs on the Formica counter. "Michael. Regan." She began peeling the shell away with tense little jabs. Her hand was shaking.

"They didn't want him to rain on our parade, I guess."

"Well, he did. I swear, the man truly is psychic. He knows exactly when I
least want him around. Five'll
get you ten that was him calling all day yesterday and then hanging up."

The egg had waited too long in its shell; it didn't want to peel gracefully. Maddie tore at it, muttering, "You sadistic little ovum—!"

"Here, here
... let me," Dan said, lifting the egg from her grip. "Sit down. Relax. You're angry and upset."

"I am, I am!" she admitted. She folded her arms across her chest and gnawed her lip as she stared at the checkerboard floor. "Oh, and I don't want to give in to it. I don't. You don't know how hard I've worked to put him behind me. Every minute I used to spend being angry at him was a minute less I could be happy about something else. I knew that. I know that. So why am I so helpless at times like these? Why do I let him still get to me?"

"Tracey?" Dan ventured as he shucked the egg of its shell. He dropped it in a bowl and started on the second.

"Tracey," Maddie agreed with a sigh. "Until she's grown up and making her own decisions.
..."

And then, because it was Dan standing there and not anyone else, she confessed to a truly dark wish. "If I just had total custody of her
... or if his weekend could somehow be supervised
..
.."

Dan turned and gave her a sharp look. "Is this still about his lax standards, or are we talking about something else?''

"I don't know," she had to confess. "I can't pin it down
... he's just
... different
... lately. Mood swings? It's almost an understatement to describe him. You saw how he was at the fund-raiser. He was that way just now on the phone. He's been plagued by headaches lately
... and he sometimes seems confused."

"So you're thinking
... what? Drugs?"

"I hope not," she said with a grim look as she took the bowl from him. "Here's what's
really
bothering me: he's involved in something with Geoffrey Woodbine."

"Woodbine! Like what?"

As she poked halfheartedly at her cold breakfast, Maddie explained Michael's lifelong fascination with the paranormal, and his fondness for pursuing different paths to self-discovery.

"His special fascination was with self-hypnosis," she told Dan. "He said it made him fully realize his talent as an artist. It sounded reasonable to me. I tried self-hypnosis myself a few times, but all I ever felt was relaxed. But Michael was into it in a very serious way. He said—
"

She felt uncomfortable talking about Michael's
private side with someone else, even Dan,
and had to force herself to continue.

"Michael said that he could go anywhere when he was self-hypnotized. Into his
... his past lives, as well as to other places in the present. I think they used to call it 'astral projection,' but now it's called 'remote viewing
'.
"

She expected Dan either to laugh or act alarmed and was
surprised when he did neither.

She added, "His—I don't know what to call it—hobby? used to bug the hell out of my father. But then, my dad was a scientist."

"A natural adversary," Dan agreed. "They'd view things differently."

"Then you don't think Michael's crazy?" she asked, taking comfort from Dan's mild reaction.

For an answer, Dan took her by both hands and pulled her up into his arms. He held her there a long time without saying anything. Finally he murmured, "I think we should go for a walk on the beach."

****

The morning had undergone a mood swing of its own. The sun was nowhere in evidence, hazed over by gray, muggy air sulking over a listless sea. Brooding: the ocean was bothered by something. They could see it in the way its shoulders lifted and fell in a series of heavy sighs as it rolled onto the beach and then slid back,
dragging
at the sand on its way out.

"There's a storm offshore," Maddie said uneasily as they walked barefoot along the tide line. "I wonder how bad it is. I haven't watched a forecast since the Fourth when it mattered so much."

Dan skimmed a pebble over the rolling swells; it bounced once before diving into the murky depth. "You're right," he said. "I generally get four or five skips out of a stone."

They resumed their slow amble along the beach. Most of the people there had begun to pack up, convinced that the sun was done for the day. Soon the two of them would have the beach—their beach—to themselves.

"You asked me if I thought Michael was crazy," Dan said, slapping his shoes against his thigh as he walked. "I never answered your question."

"I thought you did," she said, looking at him quickly.

"Nope."

They walked a little farther along in silence before Dan began again. "There was a time when I would've said, hell, yes, the guy's mad as a hatter. I would've said, astral projection? Get real! But that was before
Afghanistan
. Maddie, something happened to me that I still can't explain. I've told nobody this," he said, picking up another stone. "Not even my sister."

He rubbed the stone between his fingers, gauging its flatness, and then sent it hurtling across the sea. Two skips this time.

He was definitely stalling, but she didn't know why.

"Okay, here's the thing," he said, looking somehow embarrassed. "I've told you how I was wounded in
Afghanistan
, and how the old crone told me to go back to where it all began. What I haven't told you is
... that I did."

"Did what?" she asked, prompting him when he seemed to run out of steam again.

He cleared his throat. "When I was in that old woman's hovel, I
... ah
... I would have to say
... that
... well, I left my body. Okay? I left my body physically, left it behind, and I came here."