Beloved (44 page)

"
It
'
s happened to
me
before,
"
he said in a voice of black calm.
"
With my ex-wife.
"
He turned away from Jane and started heading alone to town, leaving her standing there.

"
Oh.
Well
—
well, I'm not your ex-wife, dammit!"
she yelled as he walked on ahead.
"
And I wish you
'
d stop treating me as if I were!
"
She listened in amazement to herself screaming.

Mac stopped
—
again
—
and turned in time to see her throw up her hands in frustration.
"
All right,
"
he said with an ironic smile.
"
We
'
ll start over.
"
He bowed and held out his hand in a gallant gesture for her to join him.
"
What do you want to try to talk about?
"

It was as close to a truce as she was ever going to get. Mollified, she fell in beside him again and said,
"
This is how we
'
ll handle it: If one of us doesn
'
t want to discuss something, we
'
ll just say
'
pass.
'
And the other will respect that. Do you agree?
"

He nodded, humoring her earnestness with a grin, and she noticed for the first time how really handsome he was in profile. He had a dimple in his right cheek. Now she wanted to know if he had one in
his left.

"For ..
. for instance,
"
she stammered, still distracted,
"
I
'
ve been meaning to ask you about that sign in your office
—
WHOLESALE ONLY
.
How come you don
'
t sell retail? Is there a zoning problem?
"

"
No; I
'
m grandfathered for retail business. I don
'
t know,
"
he said with a shrug,
"
I used to do it, but it
'
s a hassle. I can
'
t be in a shop and in the field at the same time, and I
'
d rather be in the field.
"
He broke off a twig of
spicebush and stripped its leaves absentmindedly, crushing them in his hands. He took a deep whiff and held out his cupped palm for her to smell.

"
Nice,
"
she said, inhaling the sweet scent.
"
But wouldn
'
t it pay for you to hire someone to work that side of the business?
"

"
They
'
d have to work for next to nothing, and the only one who
'
d do that would be a wife,
"
he explained laconically.

"
I understand. Whereas your wife Celeste
—
"

"
Pass.
"

"
Right. But it does seem a shame that you can
'
t cash in on the seasons more than you do. I know I sound mercenary, but there
'
s money to be made from events like Daffodil Weekend. And you just missed Easter. Mother
's Day is coming up ... June weddings ..
. and Christmas! If you could just see your way to expanding from trees and shrubs to flowers and wreaths
—
"

"
I think I
'
ve explained why I
'
m not interested,
"
he said with surprising patience.

"
Yes, because you can
'
t afford to pay for full-time help. What if you started small? Your advertising could be minimal, just some flyers around town and a two-line classified. You don
'
t need much inventory. Can you heat the hoop house? Oh, and an answering machine, that would definitely help. Someone could come in for you, say, just on weekends
—
"

"
Pass, I said.
"

She had an inspiration.
"
I
could come in, just on weekends! I wouldn
'
t mind. It
'
d be fun!
"

"
Pass.
Pass,
for Chrissake!
"
he shouted, clapping his palms to his forehead.
"
What is it with you?
You get me to agree to this ..
. this rule of civility, and then you run roughshod over it!
"

"
Oh.
"
Jane stopped on the sidewalk
—
they were in town now
—
and blushed a shade of red as deep as the bricks
under her feet. Of course if he didn
'
t
want
her free help
— the damn
ed
ingrate—then
fine.
He could just hide back there and lick his wounds until the bank foreclosed.

She was rounding on him, ready to fire into him for his defeatist ways, when she spied a small rabbit across the street on the front lawn of one of the grand prewar summer houses that lay at the edge of town. The rabbit was on its hind legs, watching them with an expression that said,
"
People,
people!
This is a residential neighborhood!
"

It all took less than five seconds. Jane realized
—
really for the first time, since she
'
d had no experience
—
that it took two to do battle. To maintain peace, all she had to do was hold her fire. She took a deep breath, threw a smile at the bunny rabbit, and said to Mac,
"
You
'
re right. I did break my rule, and I was butting in where it was none of my business. Friends?
"

She held out her hand to Mac, who shook it suspiciously. They walked a little way together, their conversation more awkward than their silences, until Mac suddenly stopped, bent down, and snapped off a daffodil that was growing at the base of an enormous maple.

He presented it to her.
"
You don
'
t need a designated weekend to enjoy a daffodil,
"
he said with a look as complex as anything she
'
d seen from him.

This was new for her. In her lifetime she
'
d been presented many times with roses by the boxful, all swathed in tissue and highlighted with Baby
'
s Breath. But to be given this single,
humble, naturalized flower ..
. She was overcome by a surge of emotion that lifted her like a moon tide, snapping the single thread that held her to her moorings. She was adrift; she didn
'
t know what to do or say.

"
I can see why you chose it,
"
she said, trying to sound lighthearted.
"
It
'
s definitely the prettiest one on the island.
"

"
I think so, too.
"

She was hearing his tone more than his words.
"
N-no, I meant the flower,
"
she stammered, blushing furiously.

"
So did I,
"
he said with a smile.

That, of course, made her blush still more. Maybe he was right, after all; maybe they couldn
'
t communicate. And yet, she was holding his keepsake in her hand, and they were strolling side by side, and now that she thought about it, she
wasn
'
t
mistaken about the tone in his voice.

They came to the corner of
Lily Street
and Mac paused and said,
"
This is my turnoff.
"

"
You
'
re not going into town?
"
she asked, surprised.

"
Actually, a very nice lady has asked me to lunch.
"

Young? Pretty? Good cook?
The questions lined up
on
Jane
'
s tongue, but she beat them back and said,
"
I
'
ll be seeing you, then.
"

"
Where
'
re
you
off to?
"

Jane considered lying, but she answered,
"
The Atheneum.
"

"
And what
'
s at
—
"

"
Pass,
"
she said tersely.

"Ah
.
"

There was no denying the disappointment in his face. He seemed almost hostile, as if this were an inconvenient time for her mad obsession about Judith to surface. Jane sighed and shrugged, the disappointment
in her face mirroring his own.

****

She went the rest of the way alone, absently twirling the flower in her hand, wondering how they were going to get around this last and biggest impasse of all. Maybe they could skirt around the subjects of his wife, his financial straits, and his business methods; maybe they could come up with a way to pretend she didn
'
t have a master
'
s degree and a staggering number of frequent-flyer miles with three different airlines. But they sure as hell were not going to get around the fact that she believed in ghosts
—
well,
one
ghost
—
and he didn
'
t.

Jane wanted so much not to believe. Take right now, for instance. The thought that the spirit of Judith Brightman was using her to complete some unfinished business seemed ludicrous. This was
Nantucket
,
not
Salem
.

Dammit!
She
'
d never live in a historic zone again; give her a nice new suburb anytime.

Jane had
a few moments
before the Atheneum opened, so she lingered over a simple but hearty calzone at the year-round waterfront café, then wandered aimlessly around the wharf area. Some of the shops, housed in tiny neat shacks with still-empty window boxes, hadn
'
t yet opened for the season, but here and there a determined shopkeeper or gallery owner had turned on the lights and the heat.

There were no yachts, there were no shoppers to speak of, and yet the wharves had a cheerful, never-say-die air about them, probably because they were vibrant with spring bulbs: tulips and daffodils and grape hyacinths, all enjoying their all-too-brief time out of the ground.

Jane had no real desire to go to the library, not after her experience there the day before, but at two o
'
clock she turned dutifully in the direction of
Federal Street
. She walked up the steps and stood under the library
'
s columns, clutching the daffodil, which she
'
d wrapped in a wet paper napkin, and tried to think of reasons not to go in.

If you find Ben
'
s name in there, then what? And if you don
'
t find his name
—
then what?

Then what.
The question had
clung to
her from the start like a cold, foggy shroud. It was pointless to speculate; who could possibly say what Judith had in mind next? Jane took a deep breath and went in, praying that whatever happened, she would be spared the pain and fright she
'
d suffered the day before. In a minute she was in the micro
film room, spooling through the last week of 1829 and into the first of 1830.

And there it was.