Читать книгу The Summer Hideaway - Сьюзен Виггс - Страница 12

Because Ross Bellamy’s discharge had been expedited by request, he was supposedly moved faster than normal through outprocessing and demobing. Still, the journey home seemed to take forever. After debriefing at Fort Shelby, Alabama, he was finally sent on his way. He felt out of place on the commercial airliner to Newark, unfamiliar with the culture after so many months in the service. There were a number of soldiers aboard, and they chattered madly the whole way, revved up by nerves and excitement as they prepared to reenter civilian life.

Ross found himself seated in an exit row between two other soldiers—a woman who had not yet turned twentyone, and a guy in his thirties who drank and talked the whole way, preoccupied with the taste of beer and a girlfriend named Rhonda.

“I don’t know why I’m so excited,” he confessed. “We did a lot of Skype and e-mail, so it’s not like we’ve been totally incommunicado. I guess it’s just the seeing-in-person thing, huh? There’s no substitute for it.”

“Makes me glad,” said the female soldier. “You don’t want technology to take the place of everything, right?”

Ross paged through an old copy of the New Jersey Star-Ledger. Gang murders, sports reports, community news. A headline about the state prosecutor’s office caught his eye; he scanned a story about corrupt state troopers. One of the prosecutors mentioned was Tyrone Kennedy. Father of Florence, the last friend Ross had made in Afghanistan.

“How about you, Chief?” the other soldier asked Ross. “You got a family waiting for you at home? Wife and kids?”

He shook his head, offered a slight smile. “Not at the moment.”

“Interesting answer,” said the female soldier. “Is this something you’re putting on your agenda?”

Ross chuckled. “Never thought of it in that way, but yeah. Maybe I am. Being in country so long makes you realize…having a family gives a guy something to hold on to.”

“Sometimes the only thing,” said the woman. “Sometimes it’s the thing that saves you.”

Ross knew she was right. The bond of family was a powerful, invisible force, feeding the will to survive. He’d seen wounded soldiers keeping themselves alive by sheer determination alone. Sometimes there was more healing power in the sight of a loved one’s face than in a team of surgeons.

“Yeah, one good thing about deployment is it makes you appreciate the life you have,” said the beer-drinking soldier. “Because nobody’s life sucks as bad as bunking in the desert in winter.”

“Hey, don’t be so sure,” said another soldier, turning around in his seat. “You haven’t met my wife.”

“Okay, now you’re scaring me,” said Ross. He knew he was joking as much as the soldier. In his life so far, he had done everything he was supposed to do as a Bellamy. He’d acquired a fine education and learned a useful profession. He’d served in the military. He just assumed the rest would come to him, that he wouldn’t have to go looking for it.

He liked women. He dated a lot. But he’d never found someone he wanted to wake up next to for the rest of his life, someone he wanted to have kids with, build a life. He hated the way his last relationship had ended just before he enlisted. It had faded away—not with an explosion of emotion but something possibly more devastating—disappointment. He’d been faced with the sinking realization that he’d made a huge mistake, convincing himself he was in love when he really wasn’t.

“It’s been my experience that love happens when you least expect it,” Granddad had said. “Sometimes it’s not convenient. So what you do is you simply stay open to the possibility, all the time.”

Ross tried to do that. Before going overseas, he’d dated a lot. He had good times. Great sex, sometimes so great he felt a flash of emotion and mistook it for love. But nothing ever lasted. He always ended up with a hole in the middle of his life. Without someone to share everything with, the future was just an endless string of days.

He wanted more than that. He needed more. The realization had been so clear to him on that final evac mission. He had vowed then to find a life that meant something, rather than waiting around for life to find him.

They landed in Newark. Civilians whipped out mobile phones and soldiers jumped up, grabbing their gear for the final push to the jetway. Families were gathered just past the TS A security point. There were women with kids clinging to them, spouses holding hand-lettered signs, parents and siblings, faces beaming through bouquets of flowers and balloons. A couple of contraband pets had been smuggled in.

Returning soldiers were enveloped by their loving families, many of them literally surrounded and swallowed up. Tears flowed and laughter erupted. Camera flashes strobed the area. Spontaneous applause erupted from onlookers.

Ross skirted the excited crowd, his duffel bag balanced on one shoulder and held in place with an upraised arm. Just seeing the rush of love that greeted everyone filled him with satisfaction. These soldiers had earned it. They’d fought and bled and wept and despaired, and they had earned the right to be home with their loved ones at last.

He was not naive enough to believe every single one of them was headed for some life of unrelenting familial bliss. Indeed, they would face hardships and disappointment and setbacks, just like anyone else. But not now. Not today.

He left the homecoming lovefest behind and scanned the throng for his mother. He tried not to seem too eager or desperate. But hell, he’d been gone a long time, long enough to start thinking of her fondly and remembering the good times.

There was a group at the back of the crowd, gathered under a sign labeled Any Soldier. It appeared to be some grassroots organization meant to provide a warm welcome home to any service person, particularly those who, for whatever reason, didn’t have anyone to meet them on the ground.

Did they really think some soldier would avail himself of their greeting? They might as well be holding up signs labeled Losers Register Here.

To his surprise, a big-shouldered guy with sergeant stripes approached the group. At first he was tentative, his bashfulness at odds with his massive size. Someone in the group noticed him, and he was immediately enclosed by the friendly mass. After that, a few more soldiers approached, some looking almost furtive, but then pleased to have a hand to shake, a friendly word to exchange.

Ross walked on past the strangers. Any port in a storm, he supposed. Family meant different things to different people.

To others, he thought, spying his own name on a handlettered sign, it meant not a whole hell of a lot.

The sign read R. Bellamy, and it was held by a white-gloved, uniformed stranger in a banded hat. He wore a badge that said Royal Limo Service.

Great, thought Ross. His mother had sent a car service to pick him up from the airport. His stomach sank, and he mentally kicked himself for expecting anything else.

“That’s me,” he said to the limo driver, offering a brief handshake. “Ross Bellamy.”

“Welcome to New York, sir,” the driver said with a vague accent. “My name is Pinto. Can I take your bag?”

“Thanks.” Ross handed over the duffel.

“Baggage claim is this way,” said Pinto. “Did you have a pleasant flight?”

“It was fine.”

“Where you coming from, then?”

“Afghanistan, the eastern part of the country, by way of Mobile, Alabama.”

Pinto gave a low whistle. “You mean you was on deployment.” He set down the duffel and shook Ross’s hand. “Glad you’re back, man.”

“Yeah.” The handshake felt ridiculously good.

The limo was actually a Town Car, which was a relief to Ross. A big stretch limo ran the risk of seeming ostentatious. The plush leather of the car’s upholstery sighed under his weight as he slid in and fastened his seat belt. His mother had clearly ordered the VIP package. There was an array of amenities—ice and drinks, cocktail snacks, mints, a phone for customers’ use.

He picked it up and dialed his mother’s number. “Mrs. Talmadge’s residence,” said her assistant.

“It’s Ross,” he said. “Is my mother available?”

“Hold a moment, please.”

“Ross, darling.” Winifred Talmadge’s voice trilled with delight. “Where are you?”

“On my way from the airport.”

“Is the car all right? I told the service to send their best car.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s great.”

“I can’t tell you what an utter relief it is to know you’re back. I nearly lost my mind worrying.”

It was natural, even normal for a mother to worry. When your son was in a battle zone, it was to be expected. “Thanks,” he said.

“I mean, what can he possibly be thinking?” she rushed on. “I haven’t slept a wink since he announced his intention to go off to the Catskills in search of his long-lost brother.”

“Oh,” said Ross. “Granddad. That’s what you’re worried about.”

“Well, aren’t you?”

“Of course. Listen, traffic doesn’t look bad at all. I should be there soon. Can we talk about it then?”

“Certainly. I’ll have all your favorites for dinner.”

“Great, thanks.”

She paused. “Ross.”

“Yes?”

“Just refresh my memory,” she said. “What are your favorites?”

He burst out laughing then. There was nothing to do but laugh. Here he’d been thinking she might be having a moment. Might be genuinely sentimental about him.

“Hey, anything that’s not served in a metal compartmentalized tray is fine with me,” he said.

He rode the rest of the way into Manhattan in blissful silence, leaning back against the headrest. In a way, he was grateful for the mother he had. Seriously, he was. He learned as much from her bad example as other people did from having good mothers.

Winifred Lamprey Bellamy Talmadge was a creature of her own invention. Lacking what she regarded as the right background, she had invented a whole new persona for herself.

Few people knew she had grown up in a seedy section of Flatbush, in a thin-walled apartment above her parents’ pawn shop. Early in life, she’d learned to be ashamed of her humble roots, and had made it her life’s mission—as she’d put it when Ross questioned her—to rise above it. She’d made a study of the upper classes. She practiced speaking in an ultrarefined, boarding school accent, slightly nasal and beautifully articulated. She studied the way the wealthy dressed and ate and comported themselves. She totally hid who she was.

She buried her past, insisted on being called Winifred instead of Wanda. She feasted on novels of the mannered elite. As a high school girl, she set a goal to attend Vassar College—not so much for the education, but for its traditional social affiliation with Yale. She wanted to marry a Yale man, and attending Vassar was the way to do it. With the focus and dedication of a nationally ranked scholar, she applied herself in high school. She knew she had to work twice as hard as the privileged girls of private schools. And she did, even winning lucrative scholarships. Such dedication, her teachers had said. Such discipline. She’ll probably do something extraordinary with her life.

It could be argued that she had, in a way. He had to give her props for that. It was no small feat to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps, in a single generation going from Flatbush to Fifth Avenue simply by sheer force of will.

Ross knew all this about his mother because his grandfather had told him. Not to gossip or be mean but to try to give a hurting, grieving boy some perspective with regard to his mother, who had all but turned her back on him after the death of his father. Ross would never understand a person who ran from her past and hated who she really was. But he learned to put up with her paranoia and self-absorption, and his grandfather had, in time, made it cease to matter.

Ross gazed out the car window at the landscape passing by en route to the city—first the tenements and creaky wooden row houses of the outskirts, the industrial midurban zone of boxy brick and metal buildings, and finally the tunnel leading to Manhattan, vibrant and congested, smelly and full of energy. His mother’s neighborhood, on the upper west side, was a calm oasis of residences with wrought-iron gates leading to fussy gardens.

Though Winifred had her widow’s benefits from her late husband, she still managed to live beyond her means. Her former father-in-law, George Bellamy, assured her that he was keeping her in the will. Granddad had vowed that as the widow of his first son and the mother of his first grandson, she had earned the privilege.

After being widowed by her first husband and divorced by her second, Winifred didn’t know what else to do, having never made a career for herself. All the promise her teachers had seen in her, all the promise that had won her scholarships and a coveted spot at Vassar, had served one purpose and one purpose only—to marry well.

And indeed she had. The Bellamy family was wealthy and influential with roots that could be traced, not to the mongrel rebels who had arrived on the Mayflower, but to the genteel nobles who stayed in England and conquered the world. To Winifred, marrying Pierce Bellamy had been like grabbing the brass ring on the merry-go-round.

There was a catch, though. Something no one ever told Winifred. Or Pierce, for that matter. And the catch was that certain things couldn’t be gleaned from a book. The finest education in the world could not instruct someone how to marry for the right reasons, or even to know what those reasons were. The best schools in the country could not teach a person to be happy and stay that way, let alone keep someone else happy.

For now, Ross would let himself be glad he was home. He would be grateful for every day that didn’t involve surface-to-air missiles, sucking chest wounds, evacuation under fire or war-shattered lives. And he would do everything in his power to convince his grandfather to fight his illness rather than give up.

He dialed his grandfather’s number, predictably getting a pre-recorded voice mail message. His grandfather had a cell phone, too, and Ross tried that, as well. It went straight to voice mail, meaning the thing was probably turned off or had a dead battery. Granddad had never quite warmed up to having a cell phone.

Tonight, Granddad, Ross thought. I’ll find you tonight. Never mind that his mother was going to serve all his unremembered favorites. He would borrow the roadster and drive up to the wilderness camp where his sick and dying grandfather had gone, in the company of a stranger.

Ross picked up the phone again. He only had a few friends in the city. Educated abroad, then serving in the army, he hadn’t really settled down anywhere. He was ready now, though. More than ready.

He tried calling Natalie Sweet, whom he’d known since ninth grade and who lived here. Thank God for Natalie. Other than his grandfather, she was probably the person closest to Ross. He got her voice mail and left a message. Then he did the same for his cousin Ivy, and was secretly relieved when she didn’t pick up, since she wept each time they spoke of their grandfather.

The car pulled up at a handsome brown brick building. It was nominally the place Ross called home. In actuality, he had been moved around so much after his father was killed that he never quite knew where home was. Had it been the Bellamy family retreat on Long Island? His uncle Trevor’s place in Southern California? His grandfather’s apartment in Paris? He had no emotional ties to this particular patch of upper Manhattan, no true anchor, except wherever his grandfather happened to be.

The doorman, Cappy, greeted him warmly. So did Ross’s mother, to be fair, the moment he walked through the door and Salomé told him Madame was in the living room.

Winifred hugged him close, and her arms felt taut and strong around him. When she pulled back, tears shone brightly in her eyes. “I’ve missed you, son.”

Tall and slender, she maintained her looks with regular visits to salons and spas. Her hair looked polished, her makeup perfect, despite the tears. In her own needy way, she did love him.

“I’m so relieved to have you back, safe and sound,” she added.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a seat by a window that overlooked a manicured park, crisscrossed by pathways. “A little something I brought you,” he said, handing her a flat jar with a colorful label. It was caviar from the Caspian Fish Company Azerbaijan. “Slim pickings in the souvenir department.”

“Thank you, Ross. You know I love caviar.”

“Sure. I want to hear all about Granddad. What’s going on?”

She reiterated the words that had brought him racing across the globe: glioblastoma multiforme. Grade four— which meant rapid progression. Refusing treatment. “He said he wants to make the most of the time he has left,” she explained, her voice tinged with indignation. “And then what does he do? Hires some woman who is obviously after his money, and goes looking for some lost branch of the family. I think it’s complete and utter nonsense.”

Ross wasn’t sure what she was referring to as complete and utter nonsense. George’s diagnosis or his reaction to it? His quest to reconnect with his brother or the fact that there were other Bellamys in the world?

“Did you know anything about Granddad’s brother?” asked Ross. “Did Dad?”

She waved a hand in dismissal. “Pierce knew about the brother. It was no secret. It was simply a fact. George had a brother and the two never saw each other or spoke.”

“And you didn’t think there was anything wrong with that?”

“It’s not my place to judge. Nor is it yours. I always assumed they had gone down separate paths. Your grandfather was an expatriate until he retired a few years ago, and his sons are…Why, I scarcely know where anyone is these days. It’s easy to lose track.”

“Uncle Gerard’s in Cape Town, Uncle Louis in Tokyo and Uncle Trevor’s in L.A. It’s not rocket science, keeping up with family members. Something else must have happened.”

“He’s being a foolish old man,” Winifred pronounced. “That’s what happened. I don’t know if his lack of judgment is caused by the cancer, or if he’s simply old and foolish. I hope he’ll listen to you, Ross. You’re the only one who can reason with him. He’s acting out of panic, going with a strange woman to a strange town when he should be here, with us,” his mother said, her voice taut with insistence.

Ross felt a surge of pity. Yes, she was self-centered. But she and Granddad shared a common bond. Ross and his grandfather were perhaps the only ones in the family who understood that Winifred was terrified of another loss, and it wasn’t all about the money.

Once a year, on the anniversary of Pierce’s death, Winifred would go to the war veterans’ cemetery in Farmingdale on Long Island. There, she would weep as she lay a wreath at the unadorned headstone that was indistinguishable from all the others there, in the endless rows, except for the name chiseled in it. Each year she was joined in this ritual by her father-in-law, who would visit from Paris or wherever he happened to be working.

“He’s a selfish, foolish old man to do this to his family,” she repeated.

“Oh, that’ll bring him rushing back,” Ross pointed out.

“I would never tell him that.”

“Sometimes you can sense someone’s opinion without having it expressed directly.” He paused. Then something made him ask, “Did you ever really know Granddad, Mom? Did you love him, or did you love the way he took care of us after Dad was killed?”

“Don’t be silly. The two are inseparable.” Then she burst into tears. “Of course I loved him. What on earth do you take me for?”

Ross touched her shoulder, knowing this was a rare glimpse at his mother’s closely guarded heart. She patted his hand and moved away from him. The two of them had never been at ease in one another’s company. Ross felt too restless to sit still. “I’m going to drive up and find Granddad. If I leave now, I can beat the rush-hour traffic out of the city.”

“You just got here,” said Winifred.

“Come with me,” he suggested.

“I couldn’t,” she said. “I have too much on my schedule.”

Ross didn’t let himself comment about that. “I can stay for dinner,” he conceded. “Then I need to borrow the car."

“Thank God I caught you,” said Natalie Sweet, exiting the taxicab. “Your mother told me I could catch you if I hurry.”

In the remote parking facility where the car was stored, Ross set aside the car keys and opened his arms. She launched herself at him. They clung together for long moments and he inhaled the bubblegum-sweet scent of her hair. She was his best friend, and one of his oldest. He and Natalie had met at boarding school in Lugano, Switzerland. They had both been scared, skinny kids with mad skills at skiing and families that were far, far away.

Leaning back a little, he lifted her off the ground. “I’m glad you caught me.”

“Welcome home, soldier,” she said, and her voice in his ear was as welcome as an old favorite song on the radio.

“Thanks.” He set her down. “You look fantastic, Nat. The writing life agrees with you.”

She laughed. “Making a living agrees with me. See how fat and sassy I am?” She perched her hands on her hips.

“You look great.”

She had always been pretty—to Ross, anyway. Not a classic beauty; she had typical girl-next-door good looks, with the wholesome appeal of a loaf of freshly baked bread.

“So things are working out at the paper?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you all about it in the car.” She grinned at his expression. “That’s right, soldier. I’m coming with you.”

“I don’t remember inviting you.”

She indicated a slouchy-looking weekender bag on the pavement. “You didn’t. But you’re going to need me and we both know it. We’ve got the Vulcan mind link up and running, right?”

In secondary school, they’d both been closet fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a crazy dubbed version that aired on the Italian national station. To this day, he still remembered how to say “Live long and prosper” in Italian.

“Look, it’s really good of you,” he said. “But I’m driving upstate by myself. It’s not a pleasure trip.”

“Haven’t you figured it out by now?” she asked, giving him a slug in the arm. “I’d rather have a rotten time with you than a great time with anyone else. So we’d better get going, or we’ll get stuck in traffic.”

“You’re not coming.”

“Why would you waste valuable time in an argument you’re going to lose?” she asked.

“Damn. You are one huge pain in the ass.”

A few minutes later they were in a thick but moving line of traffic leaving the city behind, block by tattered block.

“Thanks for letting me tag along,” Natalie said. “This car kicks ass.”

He’d never argue about his mother’s taste in cars. The Aston Martin roadster drove like a carnival ride. He could barely remember the last time he’d driven anything that didn’t involve both hands and both feet simultaneously.

“You didn’t give me a choice,” he reminded Natalie.

“I love George. You know I always have, and I want to do what’s best for him under the circumstances.”

“That’s why I need to see him,” Ross said. “To figure out the circumstances. I can’t go by what my mother reported to me. According to her, he’s suffering from dementia. His judgment is impaired. He might be a victim of some predatory nurse.”

She reached across the console, touched his arm. “I’m so glad you’re back, Ross. I want to hear what it was like over there,” she said. “When you’re ready to talk about it.”

“Yeah, I’m not really there yet,” he said, knowing the trauma of his deployment was still too fresh to discuss with anybody—including himself. Eventually he would need to talk about his time overseas, describe the things he’d seen and done.

Just not now. Everything was all too fresh. It was very, very strange to consider that only hours ago, he’d still been in the military. Only days ago, he’d been embroiled in a life-or-death firefight, and still bore the healing scratches of that final battle. He felt as though he’d been plucked from one world and set down in another. Not that he wasn’t grateful, but he hadn’t quite adjusted.

During the long, intermittently scenic drive upstate, he thought about the more immediate issue. His was a messy, screwed-up family—more than he knew, apparently. No wonder Granddad had taken off. Maybe he’d gone in search of a less screwed-up branch of the Bellamy family.

“Well, when you’re ready, so am I,” said Natalie.

“I’d rather hear about you, Nat. So you say work is good?”

“Work is great. The world of sports journalism is my oyster. I had a big break last year—a piece on an up-and-coming baseball pitcher in the New York Times Magazine. My blog has a big following and I’m working on a book. Oh, and here’s something I bet you didn’t know. It’s our twentieth anniversary.” She touched his arm again, giving him a squeeze. It felt…unfamiliar. People in his unit didn’t touch.

“No shit.” He draped his wrist over the arch of the steering wheel. “I’ve never kept count. You mean we met twenty years ago?”

“Yep. And it was hate at first sight, remember? You totally made fun of my braces.”

“You made fun of my haircut.”

“It’s a miracle we lasted five minutes together, let alone twenty years.”

They had been forced to work together on a school project. The two of them came from completely different backgrounds, although that hadn’t been the cause of their mutual dislike. Ross was an adolescent train wreck, grieving the loss of his father. He came from a family that had money—had rather than made. There was a difference.

Natalie, on the other hand, had been a scholarship student. Her parents were missionaries working in an East African principality that tended to erupt with military coups every few months.

The two of them had teased and fought their way into a genuine friendship. Their bond came from their shared pain; they were both kids who had been set aside—Ross by his mother, who could not abide the thought of having to raise him alone, and Natalie by her parents, whose humanitarian ideals left no room for their daughter.

Reverend and Mrs. Sweet believed they were meant for a higher purpose than merely being parents to a gifted but awkward girl.

“That officially makes you my oldest friend,” she declared.

“Same here. So we’re both old. When are you going to marry me?”

“How about never?” she asked. “Does never work for you?”

It was a running joke with them. They had struggled through dating woes in high school and commiserated at Columbia, where they’d both gone to college, she to study journalism, and he, aeronautics. On a single, ill-conceived night, fueled by too many boilermakers, they had lost their virginity to each other. They’d figured out then that they could never be together as lovers. The delicate alchemy of their friendship didn’t transform itself into passion, no matter how hard they tried.

“That’s not enough for me,” she’d said. “Or for you, either. We’re forcing this, and we shouldn’t need to. When it’s right, we won’t have to force it.”

He’d teased her about having a secret wish to be a psychoanalyst. He hadn’t disagreed with her, though.

As for Natalie, she always claimed her boyfriends didn’t work out because Ross had filled her head full of unrealistic expectations. She’d been serious about one guy awhile back; some musician. Like all the others, it hadn’t worked out.

Every time she broke up with a guy, Ross would accuse her of holding out for him.

“You’re killing me here,” he said to her. “How many rejections can one guy take?”

“From me? The sky’s the limit, dude. What’s your hurry, anyway? Most guys I know run the other way when it comes to marriage talk. You sound like you’re in some kind of race to settle down.”

“It’s not like that,” he said. “It is that.” Especially after what he’d seen over there. “I’m tired of being alone, Nat,” he said. “I want to be someone’s husband. Someone’s dad, eventually.”