Blame It on Paradise (15 page)

“Jackie, you’re home!”

He grimaced at the ceiling. “What’s up, Mom?”

“I don’t mean to bother you, Jackie,” Connie DeVoy began hesitantly, “but I wanted to invite you to the house next Sunday. It’s, well, you know, Harry’s birthday, and your dad and I would really like to have you come down.”

“Mom, I have plans. I’ve got to, um—” He cut himself off before a lie could reach his lips. “We’ll see, Mom. Okay?”

“But Jackie…it’s been so long. You didn’t come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas, you didn’t even call for New Year’s. That boss of yours tells you to go halfway across the world on a moment’s notice, and you’re off like a whistle. Why do you—”

He spoke over her, effectively ending her tirade. “I have a lot of work to do, Ma. You know this is a crucial time for me.”

“You always have a lot of work, and I understand that. But just this once, couldn’t you—”

“I’ll try. That’s the best I can do, okay?”

“Your brothers would really like to see you. So would me and Dad.”

The chime of the doorbell echoed through the living room and Jack was equally thankful and annoyed—thankful for the excuse to end the call with his mother, annoyed that someone else was now interrupting his afternoon. “Mom, I have to go. There’s someone at the door.”

“Next Sunday at one, don’t forget, Jackie,” his mother managed before he turned off the cordless phone, set it down, and then trotted to the door. He opened it to find Lina standing on the doorstep while a driver withdrew her garment bag from the trunk of a shiny black Lincoln.

“Hey,” Jack greeted warmly. “I wasn’t expecting you for another few hours. You were supposed to call me when you arrived. I would have picked you up.”

Lina moved into his embrace, leaning heavily against him. “I took an earlier flight. I didn’t want to trouble you, so I hired a car to bring me home.”

Home…the word echoed in Jack’s head and his heart swelled as he kissed the top of her head. “Did the trip go well?”

She nodded against his chest.

“Are you going to tell me why you had to go there?”

Her face still buried in his sweater, she shook her head.

“Are you okay?”

She drew back a little, to face him. “I’m a bit peaky, I think. I ordered a kidney pie from room service my first night in Toronto, and the sight of it threw me off everything but digestive biscuits and weak tea for the rest of the week.”

Jack grinned as he cupped her face and studied it. “I’m not trying to be funny, but you look a little pale.”

She smiled wanly. “I’m sure it’s nothing a good meal and a good rest can’t fix.”

A short ways behind her, the Lincoln driver cleared his throat. Lina pulled away to pay him, but Jack intervened after reading the name of the service on the nametag clipped to the driver’s lapel. “I believe I have an account with your service.” He rattled off an account number, which the driver typed into his handheld computer log.

“There it is, Jackson DeVoy,” the driver said. “Your receipt will arrive in the mail within three business days.” He touched the brim of his smart black cap and bowed in farewell. “Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Sir, madam.”

Jack grabbed Lina’s luggage and carried it up to the bedroom. After kicking off her shoes, Lina went to the sofa, grabbed the blanket she had taken to storing there, and proceeded onto the deck. She bypassed the teak chairs, opting for the matching sun lounger instead. Jack joined her, slipping under the blanket and shifting her so that she lay in his embrace.

“It’s thirty-nine degrees out here,” he told her. In his boots, jeans and thick crew neck sweater, he scarcely felt the cold, but he felt the urge to parent Lina, who’d come out in a silk blouse, wool slacks and a light jacket.

“I’m hoping the cold air will refresh me.” She hoped it would do a lot more than refresh her; she wanted it to clear away the nausea she’d suffered most of her trip.

Jack’s fingers lightly played in her hair. “How was your flight?”

“Not bad. I slept through most of it, despite the best efforts of a loud-mouthed stockbroker who kept screaming into his cell phone about some dazzling new Japanese computer software company that just went public.”

“Did he mention the name of the company?” Jack perked up. “I’ll bet it was Kobeyashi Technologies. They’re ten years ahead of everyone else when it comes to new interfacing technology. I’d love to add some shares of that to my portfolio. Or could it have been Siyuri Robotics?”

“I don’t know, I don’t care, and I wouldn’t tell you anyway,” she yawned. “Is money all that matters to you, Jack?”

“Money is the only thing that keeps the wolves from the door. You grew up in a place where food falls from the trees, and where you can sleep outside all year and walk everywhere. It was different where I grew up.”

Lina pulled her arm from under the blanket and pointed south, over the water. “That’s South Boston over there, isn’t it? You didn’t grow up too far from here.”

Jack glanced at the shadowy skyline. “The distance between Southie and Nahant isn’t measured in miles. My dad worked two jobs to keep up with the mortgage on a clapboard house that should have been condemned during Prohibition. My mother was the queen of day-old bread. She knew to the minute how late she could mail in the electric bill payment before our service was cut off. My family was poor, Lina. I don’t ever want to be poor again.”

“You had two parents who loved you enough to make sure you had what you needed. It may not have been the best, or what you wanted, but everything they did got you to where you are now. You’ll have to work harder to convince me that you were poor.”

He hugged her closer, squinting at Boston as though he could peer directly into his father’s shabby little house. His mother was probably in the miniscule kitchen preparing the traditional Saturday night supper of baked beans and hotdogs, which her husband and at least two of her three sons would consume in the living room while they hooted and hollered at whoever the Bruins were playing on the plasma television he’d given his parents for Christmas.

His mother would sit in the kitchen at the old chrome-edged table with last week’s
Boston Globe Magazine
crossword opened before her on the dull laminate surface. She’d pore over the puzzle clues, oblivious to the ruckus of her husband and sons in the adjoining room.

In his memory, those hockey Saturday nights were the only moments he’d ever seen his mother spend on herself, the only time when she put aside laundry, dusting, mopping, scouring, sweeping, washing dishes, vacuuming, cooking, mending, breaking up fights and all the other things she’d done for her family without complaint and without compensation, and most times, without even a simple thanks.

“My mother called a little while ago,” Jack began hesitantly. “She wants me to come by next Sunday. It’s my brother’s birthday.”

“Which brother?”

“Harrison. Harry. He’s turning thirty, and he’s already been married for ten years. He and his wife Beth were high school sweethearts. We actually dated a couple of times.”

“You and Harry?” Lina teased.

“Me and Beth, wiseguy. When I was a senior in high school, Beth was a sophomore, but she was the hottest girl in school. I took her to the Christmas dance that year. Over Christmas break, she came to the house, presumably to watch videos. She saw Harry, and the rest kind of wrote itself. They’ve been together ever since.”

“Cuckolded, just like King Arthur,” Lina laughed.

“It was all for the best in the end. I only wanted Beth because every other guy wanted her. But Harry genuinely liked her. They got married two years after they graduated from high school. It was funny because they weren’t even legally old enough to drink at their own wedding. They lived in a tiny little basement apartment in Southie while Harry saved up to put a down payment on a house. He found a three-story brick rowhouse close to both sets of in-laws. It still needs a lot of work, but I gotta hand it to him. It has amazing potential. The neighborhood is experiencing an economic revival, so it’ll have excellent resale value. Real estate is an incredible investment. I’ve tried to tell Harry to finish fixing the place up, sell it and—”

“He probably doesn’t want to hear you go on about a financial investment when he thinks of it as an investment in his family,” Lina said over him.

“They don’t have any children.”

She clucked her tongue. “Jack, you’re impossible.”

“Will you be here on Sunday, or are you flying off again?”

“I’m needed in Madrid early next week. I was planning to leave on Sunday.”

“Oh. I was wondering if perhaps you’d like to go to the party with me. But since you have to be in Spain, I guess—”

“Jack,” she cut in, “Spain can wait. Family shouldn’t have to.”

CHAPTER 12

Early Sunday morning, Lina woke up alone in Jack’s bed. During the week, he typically rose and left the house before dawn, long before she lifted her head from the pillow. Sundays he would sleep in at least until seven, so his absence gave her a bit of a start. She threw off the warm covers and swung her legs to the floor. Her tiny white camisole and matching bikini panties offered no warmth against the morning chill, and her skin instantly broke out in goose pimples as she made her way out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

The soft sound of measured breathing caught her ear and drew her to the living room. She found Jack facing the ocean, standing on a long, narrow gray rubber mat. Lina stopped midway down the stairs, watching his precise movements from behind as well as their reflection in the sliding glass doors in front of him. He moved with the same mesmerizing power and grace as the giant nikaus at home when they bent and swayed in storm-strengthened breezes. Lina barely noticed Jack’s rumpled white T-shirt and plain gray gym shorts. The perfect musculature of his legs and arms held her enraptured, sending a tingle through her at the memory of how his legs felt between hers, with their crispy-soft golden hair brushing the smoothness of her own naturally hairless limbs.

He took to the floor, arms straight, palms flat on the mat, his back and head arching toward the ceiling with his hips and legs flat. This new pose gave Lina a peek of Jack’s abdominal muscles. She bit her lower lip, hungry for the feel of those hard abs working against her belly as he filled her and cloaked her with his weight.

Jack broke his pose and stood with an easy grace she didn’t typically see in such large men. She never would have expected a man like Jackson DeVoy to embrace a discipline like yoga, something that seemed so foreign for a Southie dockworker’s son. But then Jack had embraced her, too, and she was sure that she was one of the most foreign elements he had ever invited into his life.
There’s hope for you yet, Mr. DeVoy,
she smiled to herself.

She was certain that this was a part of his life that was sacred to him and that she probably shouldn’t intrude. But she couldn’t stop herself from descending the stairs and quietly moving across the carpet. Jack, lost in concentration, seemed not to notice her until she was standing behind him, aligning her arms and legs with his, shadowing his poses.

Jack noticed her, and his heart surged at her sudden proximity. He didn’t break his routine, but he slowed it, allowing her to keep up with him. When he pressed his palms together and stretched his prayerful hands upward, Lina faced him, copying the pose. His hands separated, slowly lowering to shoulder height as he bent his knee to slide his right foot toward Lina, bringing his inner right thigh along her outer left thigh. A perfect mimic, Lina followed him into an effective warrior pose of her own.

The pose suited her, Jack realized as his gaze connected with hers. Fierce yet gentle, fearless but cautious, savage and civilized, Lina was the ultimate modern warrior. Without breaking form from the neck down, Jack leaned his head forward until his lips met hers. One by one, his body parts slipped out of the warrior stance to form around Lina, who continued to follow his lead.

Jack’s solitary Sunday morning yoga session became a lengthy, unhurried wrestling match that left him and Lina knotted together atop their discarded clothing on the yoga mat. She arched into him, purring into his mouth with each languorous movement of his hips, and Jack felt that he couldn’t possibly get close enough to her, to feel her intensely enough. He glimpsed their reflection in the sliding doors, and the sight sent Jack’s passions soaring even higher. His peach-hued form wrapped in the dark of Lina’s was the most erotic and beautiful image he’d ever seen. If only he could, he would have photographed it, to preserve the moment forever. But his enjoyment of living it overcame all other thoughts, and his body erupted.

Lina responded powerfully, every part of her stiffening for a moment before hard pulses carried her to the height of carnal exultation, bringing Jack along for the ride. Their moment in paradise seemed infinite and too short at the same time, and they remained locked together even after they returned to the soft rubber mat on Jack’s living room floor. Through soft kisses and feather-light touches, they offered their Sunday good mornings before climbing once more to the summit of paradise.

* * *

Wedged in like sticks of gum on the sunken plaid sofa, Sonny, Connie, Harrison and Anderson DeVoy sat facing Lina, who had been given the seat of honor: Sonny’s dark brown Barcalounger with the removable beverage and remote control holders.

Lina enjoyed her vantage point because it gave her an unobstructed view of Jack’s immediate family, minus his sister-in-law Beth. Each of them tried so hard not to stare at her that they spent a great deal of time with their heads spinning all around the small living room.

During the drive to his old neighborhood, Jack had given Lina his family’s most basic statistics. His mother, Connie, was the stereotypical housewife. Jack reminded Lina that his father had worked at the same shipyard in Quincy for the past thirty-seven years, and that Harrison and Anderson had followed him there after their graduations from South Boston Vocational Tech High School. Like their father, Harrison and Anderson were tall and stacked with hard muscle. Upon first meeting the other DeVoy men, Lina noted an edginess to the way they moved, and she realized that Jack’s self-assured and elegant body mechanics were learned rather than organic.

Of the three “boys,” Jack looked most like his father. At fifty-five, Sonny DeVoy was still a ruggedly handsome man with strong, craggy features reminiscent of Clint Eastwood. With his graying blond hair and the mischievous twinkle in his hazel eyes, he called to Lina’s mind the lonesome cowboys on the covers of the novels about the American Old West that Levora’s husband enjoyed reading.

The DeVoy living room was small, and it seemed tinier still with all four DeVoy men assembled in it. Anderson, the blondest, broadest and tallest, occupied more space than anyone, and he sighed gratefully when Connie pried herself off the sofa, giving him a little more room.

“M-Miss Marchand,” Connie started, smoothing her brown plaid skirt in a way that betrayed her nervousness, “Jackie, uh, Jackson didn’t mention that he would be bringing a lady friend with him this afternoon.”

“We didn’t know Jackie had any ladies in his life, friend or otherwise,” Anderson snickered, his pale blue eyes twinkling.

Lina’s ear for languages and dialects perked as she listened to the DeVoys speak. Just as he’d re-trained his body mechanics, Jack had worked on his speech. He sounded as if he’d grown up in Kansas with Levora, unlike Connie and Anderson, who stitched their words together by turning
r’s
into
ah’s
and dropping
ing’s
.

Sonny gave Anderson an elbow to the ribs that would have sent a smaller man hurtling off the sofa and through the archway into the kitchen. “Don’t mind him.” Sonny’s gruff voice boomed with an Irish brogue, the rough edges of which had been softened by almost four decades in New England. “Despite the best efforts of his ma ’n me, Andy’s got the social grace of a drunken baboon.”

“Isn’t it about time that we cut a cake or something?” Jack interjected. His family had been too quiet for too long, although Lina was taking their unabashed eyeballing in stride. She seemed just as comfortable in the shabby old living room as she’d been in the Coyle-Wexler boardroom and her own treehouse on Darwin. If she noticed the threadbare spots on the ancient green carpet, or the cracked armrests of the Barcalounger, she gave no indication. She seemed especially indulgent of the way his family members stared at her, then hastily looked away when she caught one of them at it.

“You in some kind of a hurry to go, Jackie?” Harrison asked before his maple eyes raked over Lina. “Fair enough, ’cause I can see why. Nice catch, big brother. I guess your tastes in girls have changed a bit since high school.”

“I’d say they’ve improved.” A chill radiated from the right side of Lina’s chair, where Jack half sat on the arm.

Lina glanced up at Jack’s icy expression, then turned her gaze back to Harrison. If Anderson was the playful baby of the bunch and Jack the overachieving number one son, dark-haired Harrison was clearly the sullen middle child.

“Mrs. DeVoy?” Lina scooted out of the big chair. “Perhaps there’s something I can help you with in the kitchen.”

Jack swung his legs out of the way, almost tipping over a rickety bamboo stand bearing a scrawny spider plant, to allow Lina to pass by him. She caressed his cheek before disappearing into the kitchen with his mother.

“So, uh, happy birthday, Harry.” Jack spoke over the sound of Lina’s voice from the kitchen. Daring a glance at her, he saw that just as she had at Coyle-Wexler, she had instantly acclimated to her new surroundings and taken control in his mother’s kitchen, urging her to sit while she made the coffee and set out cups.

Jack handed Harrison a big blue envelope. “It’s nothing fancy, just a gift card. I figured you could get what you wanted.”

Harrison tore open the envelope and looked at the card. His eyes moved over the greeting before he opened the gift card envelope inside the card. He grunted when he noted the $500 written in the balance box. “Who picked this out?” he asked, displaying the birthday card.

“What difference does it make?”

“I just want to know if the card is from you or from
her
.” Harrison threw his head in the direction of the kitchen.

Anderson reached across his father and tapped Harrison’s knee. “I wouldn’t complain if Jack’s Caribbean queen gave me a card.” His eyes seemed to glaze over as he stared into the kitchen. “Or anything else, for that matter.”

“She’s not Caribbean,” Jack said. “She’s from the South Pacific. She’s part Aborigine, part French, part English—”

Sonny harrumphed.

“And part African,” Jack told his brother as though he hadn’t been interrupted by his father’s open disapproval of all things English. “And quit looking at her ass.”

With a guilty start, Anderson jerked his gaze back to the living room. He picked up the remote control from the low coffee table, aimed it at the television, and tuned in his favorite sports channel. “Cool, the Celtics are playing. I say it’ll be the C’s by ten points. Want some of that, Harry?”

Still glaring at Jack, Harry stood and flipped the birthday and gift cards back at him. “Keep your gift and
her
card, Jack. I don’t want either of ’em.”

“Fine.”

When Jack made no move to retrieve the items from the carpet, Anderson grabbed them up. “Five hundred dollars!” He shoved the card back at Harrison. “Man, you and Beth could use this right now.”

Jack’s eyebrows drew closer together. “What’s going on?” He peered at Harrison. “Do you need money?”

“I don’t need a damn thing, especially from you, Jackie,” Harrison spat.

Jack bristled. “I wasn’t offering.”

“C’mon, Harry,” Anderson implored. “It might take weeks for the yard and the union to work out a contract. You and Beth still gotta eat, you’re gonna have to heat your house in the meantime. Jack’s got coin up the ying-yang. He’s in a position to help.”

“Look, boys,” came Sonny’s low growl, which was suddenly heavy with the lilt of County Kerry. “This isn’t the time to be discussin’ your brother’s finances. We can talk about it later.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Harrison stood on the bare patch of faded linoleum between the front door and the base of the stairway. “I don’t need no help from Moneybags Jack. I’ll get something to tide me over until the yard opens again.”

“You guys are on strike?” Jack said. “Since when?”

“Tomorrow will be day seventy-five,” Anderson said.

Jack got to his feet. “You’ve all been out of work for two and a half months?”

“I guess you don’t read the regular news, bro,” Anderson said. “
The Wall Street Journal
must not have covered our little strike.”

“I think of it as more of a working vacation,” Sonny said with a bitter grin. “Your mum’s been keeping me busy. I’ve retiled the bathroom and laid new vinyl tile in the basement. Tomorrow I start tearing out this old carpet. Your mum’s picked out a nice new Berber she got for a steal at Building 19 1/2 .”

“Building 19 1/2?” Jack echoed with a mouth of disgust.

“What’s that?” Lina called from the archway.

Jack turned to explain. “Building 19 1/2 is the only place where you can buy irregular Wrangler jeans, wooden Spaulding tennis racquets from1973 and factory close-out carpeting all under the same roof.” He shifted to address his mother, who was deeper in the kitchen. “If you wanted new flooring, Ma, why didn’t you just tell me? Get Dad to take you to Boston Design, someplace nice. I’ll pay for it.”

Harrison made a snorting noise that drew Lina back into the living room.

“I can help with money, Pop,” Jack went on. “What do you need?” But before Sonny could answer, Jack said, “Have Mom call my secretary tomorrow with a figure, and I’ll see that the funds are wired directly into your checking account.”

“You’re a real piece of work, Jack,” Harrison burst out with a grimace. “Why don’t you take your flashy car and your imported supermodel and go on back to Nahant? Leave us poor union stiffs to solve our own problems!”

Connie bustled through the archway, wringing her hands. “Boys, please, we have a guest. And Harry, it’s your birthday. Can’t you and Jack just try to get along, at least for today?”

“Look, Ma, this was a bad idea.” Harrison grabbed a well-worn, flannel-lined denim jacket from a peg affixed to the wall near the front door. “I’m leaving. I got some stuff to do around the house anyway.”

“But we haven’t even cut the cake,” Connie persisted.

To Jack’s eye, his mother suddenly looked twenty years older. She’d married Sonny DeVoy young, at twenty-one and fresh out of secretarial school. Jack’s birth and Sonny’s pride had ended her hopes for a career, and she’d become a housewife. With her silver-streaked blonde bob and hand-knitted sweater, she now looked every bit like the grandmother she hoped to soon become. “Please don’t stomp off angry, Harry. I hardly ever get to see my boys all together anymore.”