Belonging (6 page)

Another source of gratification and even, she’d admit, of a petty pleasure was the fact that Joanna would never in a million years have shown Blair Amberson’s residence on
Fabulous Homes
.

The summer after Joanna and Carter became lovers, she had the opportunity to see the Ambersons’ home in Westchester when they held a posh lawn party for the network. Joanna had gone with Tory and Tory’s husband, John, a network lawyer. The day had been perfectly sunny, and the French doors were open from the house to the garden where an enormous blue-and-white-striped tent had been set up. Tables of drinks and delicacies were set up around the turquoise swimming pool, on the lawn, as well as throughout the house. With a flute of Mumm’s in hand, Joanna wandered around, smiling, chatting, and secretly observing with an eagle eye.

The style of the house—French provincial—was not Joanna’s favorite. However, the pristine atmosphere was impressive. Each room, like Blair herself, was beautiful, perfect in its proportions, and unutterably calm. No clutter. No frills. No fuss.

That day she’d even seen the bedroom where her lover slept with his wife.

People drifted in and out, upstairs and down, to look at the beautiful house. Joanna decided she needed to use the lavatory on the second floor, and then she walked down the spacious hall and stood just outside the master bedroom, looking in.

She would have gone through Blair’s closet and drawers if she could have, but of course she didn’t dare, not with all the people coming and going. But where was it? she wondered, the clue, the key, to Blair’s soul? The house, master bedroom included, was as tidy and impersonal as a television ad. Luxurious, yes, but bland. Even sterile.

“What you see is what you get.” A voice came from over her shoulder.

“Tory! You startled me.”

“I thought I’d find you up here snooping around.” She sauntered into the room.

“I’m not snooping. I had to use the bathroom and I just passed—”

“I’ve told you, and you wouldn’t believe me. Believe me now? Blair’s as deep as lipstick.”

“She must have something more. Carter married her.”

“She’s beautiful. No denying that. Has money of her own, and that probably mattered when they were young. She knows how to present the facade. Blair has
nothing
beneath the facade. The scary part is, she knows it, and likes it that way.”

Joanna had turned away from the bedroom, with a glad heart. She and Carter shared so much: passion, an enthusiasm for their work, triumph when shows went well, network gossip, challenging ideas. If all he shared with Blair was this shell of a house, perhaps he should leave her and make a permanent home with Joanna.

Then she’d passed by an open bedroom door. A boy’s room, baseball posters on the walls, bats, balls, and mitts on the bedspread, a love-mauled stuffed bear tucked against the pillow. Chip. Blair
would
name her son Chip. Still, the room evoked a person, with desires and dreams—and needs, needs for a whole family, an available father. Joanna did not want to be responsible for taking a father away from a child, not ever. She’d gone silently back down the stairs, into the sunny day. She’d gone smiling, back into the midst of the party.

She’d never asked Carter to leave Blair. She’d never even really wanted him to. Why should she? Her life was full of work and friends and travel and exhaustion as well as his very satisfying love. She was proud of her self-sufficiency.

But on this lovely August evening Joanna didn’t want to be self-sufficient. Summer light lingered in the sky and summer sounds drifted up from the streets. Laughter. Singing. The whir and click of roller blades; the excited tap of high heels.

Grabbing up the phone, she dialed Tory’s number.

Tory and Joanna had met at a dinner party two years before when they’d been forced to talk with each other by virtue of their placement at the table. Tory was happily married; her life centered on her family. Joanna had just returned from a skiing trip to Vail with a man twelve years younger than she; she was working hard, climbing the ladder of her career. The two women lived very different lives, but their friendship blossomed in spite of that.

At the dinner party, Tory confessed that she’d seen the first few segments of
Fabulous Homes
and thought it was wonderful. Homes were so important, she’d said, and impassionedly she’d told Joanna about the old Victorian house they’d just bought on a bluff in Nantucket. Tory was obsessed with its furnishing and decoration. Joanna asked Tory if she could do a series about decorating the perfect summer house for her new show. Tory agreed; and over the weeks that followed, whenever Tory went to Nantucket,
Joanna joined her, taking notes and pictures. Joanna admired Tory’s sense of style and her commitment to her family’s comfort and pleasure. Tory was fascinated by the way Joanna’s mind worked and she respected Joanna’s professional achievements. They became close friends.

It was Tory, pleading for the sanctity of the family, who kept Joanna from asking Carter to leave his wife. Joanna should drop Carter, that was Tory’s view. Carter was married, and he had a son, and did Joanna really want to be responsible for breaking up a home? But he doesn’t love his wife, he loves me, Joanna insisted, and often she wept, and Tory wept in sympathy, and they had gone on arguing that way every time they talked.

The Randalls’ housekeeper answered their phone. “No, Ms. Jones,” she said, “the Randalls are not here, remember? They’re in Nantucket.”

“Of course, Lei, thank you.”

Joanna hung up the phone, despondent. Of course, the Randalls were on vacation, too. On a family vacation.

Fool! she berated herself. You should have made plans! Stalking into her living room, she flipped through her address book, looking for—what? An acquaintance she could spend the evening with? Irritated, she tossed the book aside. She would read one of the many novels she had stacked in wait. She’d answer some of the letters she’d brought home from her office. She’d—the phone rang. Joanna raced to the bedroom. Was it Carter, calling from the airport to say he already missed her?

“Hi, hon.” Tory’s warm voice filled the silence.

“Tory! I just called you. Lei answered. I’d forgotten you were in Nantucket. How are you?”

“We’re in heaven. It’s so beautiful here. It’s so luscious, it’s paradise. I want you to come to Nantucket.”

“Oh, that’s sweet, Tory, but I’ve got so much—”

“Nonsense. It can all wait. It’s August, remember? Look, everyone needs a break. Just a little tiny break?”

Joanna considered. In her office, tacked to the huge appointment calendar, was an invitation to an island cocktail party from some people she’d met months before, while taping a show in Austin. Nantucket parties were always good for discovering more potential FH hosts, so she could justify the expense of a flight and a rental car on the network’s account …

“All right, I’ll come!” Joanna decided, and found herself smiling as she said the words.

“Oh, Joanna, what fun!”

“I’ve got to tie up some loose ends at work tomorrow. Give me a day or two—”

“No. Absolutely not. You’ll always find some reason to keep working. I want you to come tomorrow.”

“Thursday.”

“No. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow night.”

“All right. I’ll call Cape and Island Airlines and make the reservation for you.”

“Tory, I can—”

“If I do it, I’ll know it’s done. I’ll call you back with the time. Bring a bikini and shorts. No briefcase allowed.”

“No briefcase! Tory!”

Tory’s response was a throaty, delighted laugh. “Oh, Joanna, it’s going to be such fun having you here!”

“I’ll be a wreck without my briefcase,” Joanna sulked, but secretly she was pleased.

The next day Joanna spent in a frenzy of organization at her office, then hurried home and packed a bag with summer clothes. The glossy art books on houses that Carter had given her were too heavy to cart to the island; she grabbed up some paperback novels.

She slipped a new tape into her answering machine. Shut the windows. Locked her door. At last she was in a taxi to La Guardia. Halfway there, the old cab’s air-conditioning broke, causing the squat driver to mutter ceaselessly during the rest of the ride in low, maniacal, rather ominous tones. On the Triboro Bridge, they were held up by a gridlock around a car stopped by an overheated radiator. Finally they arrived at the terminal, where she was immediately ushered onto a plane the size and strength of a toothpaste tube.

Darkness fell as they flew northeast, and coins of light gleamed from the black sky and from the land and occasionally from the water below them. Her fellow passengers chatted about wind surfing and weddings and sunshine and sangria, and Joanna felt her heart lighten.

The moment she stepped off the plane she could tell that it was cooler on this island than the one she’d just left. Above her the sky rose in a starry vault. The air smelled of the sea and roses. Friends and relatives greeted each other with laughter and kisses, and a handsome man wearing white flannels smiled invitingly at Joanna as he ushered his toddling mother from the arrival lounge. Joanna smiled back and pleasure raced through her blood. She felt better already.

“Do you have a convertible?” she asked the clerk at the Hertz counter.

“We surely do. A red Mustang with a white top. How’s that?”

“Perfection.”

The top was already down on the little car, as if it had been waiting for her. She tossed her bags in the back, settled in, and headed down the long straight road to ’Sconset. She didn’t own a car, didn’t need to in the city, but she loved driving, and was almost disappointed when finally she pulled up at the Randalls’ wide Victorian high on the ’Sconset bluff.

Tory came running out. “You’re here! You’re really here!”

“God, the air smells like nectar!” Joanna just stood, inhaling great drafts.

“Come in. Get out of those city clothes. I can’t believe you’re wearing high heels.”

“I always wear high heels. I didn’t even think—” Joanna followed her friend up the wide steps and into the house.

Tory’s husband, John, hugged Joanna warmly. “It’s great to have you here.”

“Where are Jeremy and Vicki?”

“At the Casino, seeing a movie with some other kids. Is that all the luggage you brought?”

“It’s all I need.”

“Well, let me show you your room, and you can change into some shorts. Are you hungry?”

Joanna hesitated. She’d never been one for regular meals. “You know, I think I am. I guess I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“You need a keeper.” Tory shook her head in disgust. “Lucky for you we saved some dinner.”

So that night Joanna dined on a meal of swordfish and fresh butter and corn on the cob. She ate in shorts and a white T-shirt, her hair tied back, her feet bare. Later, she and
Tory strolled along the peaceful village roads, chatting, luxuriating in the fragrance of honeysuckle and wild roses and salt air. After a languorous bath, Joanna slipped between crisp white sheets in the wide comfortable guest room bed. For a while she watched as a capricious ocean breeze made the hems of the starched white curtains lift and dance. She was so full and content and cool that she fell asleep immediately, only slightly missing Carter.

The next morning she didn’t awaken until noon. Her room was full of light; striding to a window, she tossed back a curtain and saw the sparkling expanse of the blue Atlantic. She took a deep breath of fresh air. Then she pulled on shorts and a sports bra and a white T-shirt, brushed her teeth and rubbed sunblock on her fair skin, yanked her long honey-blond hair up into a ponytail, found her sunglasses, and ran barefoot down the stairs.

The air in the kitchen shimmered with sunlight. On the long trestle table, in the great white ironstone bowl of fruit, lay a pink piece of paper covered with Tory’s fat, looping handwriting.

Joanna
,

We’re all off bluefishing. We’ll be home sometime in the late afternoon. The fridge is loaded, help yourself. The Latherns called to remind you of their cocktail party tonight. Take it easy—that’s an order!

Love, T
.

Joanna smiled, and choosing a fat purple plum, sank her teeth into it. Sweetness filled her mouth and juice drooled down her chin. Grabbing up a paper towel, she stalked across the kitchen, out through the back porch, and down the long wooden staircase to the beach. The sun-heated unpainted boards warmed the soles of her feet. Heat fell across her shoulders and light flashed against her face. At the bottom of the steps, she turned and struck out for the north. At her left the ocean surged and sang. The world was fresh and cool and gold and blue. She strode along.

She was perhaps twenty yards from the Randalls’ property when she realized how fast she was walking—as if she were late for an appointment. “Stop it!” she yelled at herself, right out loud, right there—the group of children playing farther down the beach
didn’t hear her over the sound of the waves. She sank down onto the sand, stretching her legs, letting as much of her skin as possible make contact with the soothing gritty heat. Wiping her mouth and stuffing the paper towel in her shorts pocket so she wouldn’t litter the beach, she ordered herself to relax. She stared out at the vast gleaming, surging water. She rolled the hard plum pit in her hand.

Where was Carter now? Somewhere in Europe. It would be evening. He and Blair would be sipping white wine and looking out at what … the Seine? the Rhine? the Grand Canal? For the first time in two years she could not reach her lover if she needed to. She had no idea where he was right now. Would absence make his heart grow fonder? Or would he, during this coming month, find himself getting to know his wife again, and to like her, admire her … desire her?

Of course they would make love.

Once Joanna had asked Carter if he and Blair made love often.

He had answered simply, “No.”

“Does she mind?”

“I don’t think she even realizes, Joanna. She’s happy, in her way. She’s successful at what she wants to do.”