A Charmed Place (69 page)

"
Nantucket
. What a desolate place to live,
"
Gwendolyn said, staring out at the rain pounding the bare windows.
"
Fog
...  rain ...
penetrating cold
...."

"
Mother, you live in
San Francisco
,
"
Jane said, recovering her sense of irony.
"
You
have fog and rain and penetrating cold.
"

Gwendolyn Drew gave her daughter a good-natured grimace.
"
Yes, but we
'
re open all year. We also have compensations: opera and ballet, museums and theaters, not to mention charity balls for all of them. But here
! What does one do on this ...
this rock?
"

"
One sits by the fire, just as we
'
re doing now, and warms one
'
s buns.
"

"
One gets rock fever.
"

"
I
wouldn
'
t.
"

"
Jane. If you
'
re thinking what I think you
'
re thinking
— don
'
t. You couldn
'
t possibly afford to keep Lilac Cottage as a weekend retreat. You have no job. The property taxes alone
—
"

"
I didn
'
t say I was keeping it,
"
Jane answered defensively. She hated when her mother acted like her father.

"
I should hope not. This inheritance is an absolute godsend. You
'
ve been living on your savings for six months now; how long could you have gone on? The mortgage on your condo alone
—
and what about your father?
"
she said suddenly.
"
When he learns about the inheritance, of
course
he
'
ll want you to sell.
"
She brightened.
"
You can go back to school and retrain; law school maybe
—
"

"
Mother, I
'
m not going to become a lawyer just because Dad
'
s one. And I
like
being a graphic designer. This downturn can
'
t last forever. I
'
ll get another job. Eventually.
"
She spread a hard pat of butter so viciously onto her slice of bread that it fell apart in her hand.

Her mother circled her daughter
'
s wrist and said soothingly,
"
Don
'
t blame me, darling. Blame the economy. Blame the advertising sector. Or better yet
—
blame your father,
"
she said with a smile.
"
He
'
s not here; he
'
ll never know.
"

"
Oh no, Mother, I blame
you,
"
Jane said, only half kidding.
"
You stopped having kids one boy short. Think how much easier my life would be if Dad didn
'
t look to me to carry on his tradition of workaholism. If you
'
d had a Neal Drew, Jr.,
he
could
'
ve been the lawyer.
"

Her mother shrugged and said,
"
Well, it
'
s too late now. Anyway, we
'
ve been all through this. If you don
'
t want to be pressured by your father, you should find yourself a nice rich man and settle down with a family. Like your sister.
"

"
Those are my choices? Law school or marriage? This is practically medieval,
"
Jane said, throwing her hands up and rolling her eyes. It was an overly dramatic gesture, she knew; but she wanted to irritate her mother, and being melodramatic in a public place was a quick and easy way to do it.

Her mother gave her
a sit-up-properly-and-eat-your-
food look. Jane went back to her Earl Grey tea.

"
I feel really guilty about the house. What will Lisa say?
"
Jane murmured, wrapping her hands around the tea mug to warm them.

"
Your sister is married and financially secure. She won
'
t begrudge you your cottage. Besides,
she
didn
'
t spend a summer with Sylvia.
"

"
I only spent a month.
"

"
And
she
didn
'
t visit her in the nursing home for the last two years.
"

"
It wasn
'
t that often,
"
Jane said sadly.
"
Not often enough. I wish I
'
d known before then that Aunt Sylvia was willing to see me.
"

"
Well, what do you want to do? Give it back?
"
her mother said, exasperated.

"
I
'
m beginning to think so!
"
It seemed an incredible act of betrayal, having to sell the cottage her aunt had loved so dearly.

"
Sweetheart.
"
Her mother
'
s smile was meltingly tender, the kind of smile a mother has for a daughter who
'
s tried to tie her shoelaces for the first time.
"
Before this windfall there was no way you would have survived without your father
'
s help, sooner or later. We know what a fiercely proud brat you are; wouldn
'
t you rather have the help from Aunt Sylvia than from your stubborn, domineering father? Who, incidentally, loves you more than life itself?
"

"
Well. Once you put it that way
...."
Jane made a little sound of frustration and gazed out the window, chewing on the inside of her lip.

"
It
'
s stopped raining,
"
her mother said, glancing at her watch.
"
I just have time to make a quick run out with you to see the place
—
"

"
Look!
"
Jane
said
, pointing out the window.
"
There
'
s the guy who threw the flower in the grave!
"

He was sitting in the driver
'
s seat of a rusty, dark green Ford pickup with
J & J LANDSCAPING
AND
NURSERY
painted on the door panel. His expression was as grim as ever, which cast a malevolent shadow over the craggy, weathered features of his fortyish face. He looked like a man capable of anything.

"
It
'
s hard to imagine him carrying a tiny rose in his pocket,
"
Jane murmured, frowning. She was absolutely put off by the man.

"
No mystery about that; Aunt Sylvia must have been a client,
"
her mother said as she dropped her Visa card on top of the tab.
"
She had to have needed help keeping up the property at the end.
"

She signaled for a waiter to square up the bill.
"
Rain or not, I
'
m looking forward to seeing your Lilac Cottage. As I recall from an old photo, it
'
s an adorable place with lots of shrubs and flowers. We
'
ll have to be very clever marketing it, especially in this economy
...."

"
Hmmm.
"
But Jane wasn
'
t listening. Her attention was fixed squarely on the driver of the pickup, who
'
d rolled down his window and was yelling across to someone she couldn
'
t see.

"
I want the burner, you moron!
"
he shouted.
"
Bring it over!
"
He threw the truck into
gear and tore off down
South Water Street
.

"
Charming,
"
Jane
'
s mother remarked, slipping her credit card into her wallet.

"
People never shout in
San Francisco
?
"
Jane asked dryly.

"
Not where we live,
"
her mother said without a trace of irony.
"
That
'
s the trouble with an island: There
'
s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, from these types.
"

Gwendolyn Drew was of the Miss Manners School of Snobbery. As far as she was concerned, you could be rich, or you could be poor. You could be educated, or you could be not. But you had better
be
have,
or you were nothing at all. Jane smiled to herself, shook her head, and slipped on her coat.
"
Ready, Mother?
"

Buy
Beloved
or turn the page to read Chapter 2.

Lilac Cottage was a shambles. Jane had tried to prepare herself for the inevitable wear and tear that two years without an occupant can mean to a house. But she hadn't taken into account the savagery of
Nantucket
's storms, or the corrosiveness of its year-round fog. And she hadn't taken into account her aunt's reluctance to spend any of her savings on the property.

She turned off the key to her rental car and sat, stunned, staring at the tiny two-story Gothic cottage, whose front door was nearly hidden by two massive holly trees flanking either side. Peeling paint, sagging gutters, missing roof shingles, rotted steps ....

"This isn't the place," Jane said flatly. "I remember a long flagstone path that wandered through a high pergola covered with purple clematis, and there were green shutters all around, and a potter's shed off on the right, and ... and it was all much
bigger."

Her mother was more philosophical. "That was a quarter-century ago, darling. You were little. Things looked big. Still, I must admit it's been far more neglected than I thought. This will be a hard sell." A thought seemed to occur to her for the first time. "Poor Sylvia," she said softly, her hand resting on the car door handle. "She must've had to watch every cent."

They got out of the car and began picking their way through the front lawn, which had the look of a mowed-down hayfield. Jane edged some of the dead grass aside with her foot.

"See? Flagstone. I was right. And this," she said, pausing before a six-foot post leaning over what used to be the front path, "this must have been part of the pergola." She tried to push the post upright; it made a dull snapping sound at the base and fell to the ground.

"Rotten," her mother said, stepping over it. "Do you have the key?"

But Jane was still riveted to the spot, staring at the post as if it were a soldier felled in some hopeless battle against time.
"I climbed up this pergola,"
she said in an awestruck voice. "I picked a bunch of clematis from the top and wove them into a purple crown for Aunt Sylvia ... and she let me unpin her hair and brush it out ... and I put the crown on her head."

She looked around, dreamily, and said, "She sat on a wooden chair right there, next to the house, and the sun picked out the red that was left in her hair ... and she told me that hers was once the same color as mine ...."

"Jane?"

"I can't believe it's all gone," Jane said, still in a faraway voice.

"The key?"

Jane stared at her mother. "To what?"

"Your
future,
ninny!" Jane's mother pointed a manicured finger at the front door. "Open it, dreamer," she commanded, laughing. "Before I grow as old as that post."