The Orphans of Race Point: A Novel (24 page)

Chapter 23

H
allie wrangled a bra on under
her T-shirt, grabbed an old denim jacket from a hook, and ran a brush through her tangled hair. Then she walked into town and picked up a cup of coffee and a
malasada
, to go. She argued with Lunes Oliveira in her mind as she walked.
So she was having a little trouble parting with her father’s things
.
That was to be expected, wasn’t it? It didn’t mean she wasn’t ready to sell a house that had sat empty for over a year.
Besides, she hadn’t even come home very much when her father was alive. Why would she want to be here now?

She could almost see him smirking as he made her face the question she’d been avoiding since her father’s death: Why
hadn’t
she come home more often? Why did she deny herself the pleasure of Nick’s company when it was still available? Why did she deny
him
?

It seemed like they had so much time. All the time in the world, as Gus had once said about their love. Another lie, as it turned out. She would be there for the Portuguese Festival, she had promised her father . . . In late fall, when the tourists were gone . . . For Christmas, definitely.

When she noticed two men watching her suspiciously, she realized she was crying openly right there in the gallery district of Commercial Street. Fortunately, they were strangers.
What are you looking at?
she wanted to say. Or, more like,
What are you doing here in my town?
But of course, it wasn’t her town anymore.

She swabbed at her face with the sleeve of her jean jacket and kept walking. She had a thousand excuses for failing to visit, but mostly she blamed her busy schedule and her husband’s aversion to the place.
Can’t you come here?
she ended up saying to Nick every holiday. And he had. Bearing
linguiça
and sweet bread,
trutas
, and the
vinho
no one but him found palatable, he would cheerfully trudge to Boston. He would sit at her mother-in-law’s formal table in what looked like fishermens’ clothes, watching with sly amusement as Sam’s mother announced to every guest: Have you met Hallie’s father? He’s a
doctor.
As if she needed to bolster his image. Hallie finally saw him as he’d been back in his Harvard days, or when he’d gone to meet Liz Cooper’s family, refusing to allow anyone to make him feel inferior.

Her friends had warned Hallie that the Provincetown where they’d grown up was gone. The fishing industry was waning, real estate prices were stratospheric, and most of the old families had moved to Truro or further up Cape. And yet every breath she took as she walked the streets told another story. From the salt-laced wind to the mixture of shells, sand, and multicolored pebbles that crunched beneath her feet to the sweet, greasy smell of the
malasada
in her white bag
,
Hallie was home.

The entrance to the alley beside her house was narrow, but it widened on the bay. It opened her lungs and split her heart every time she walked through it. She planned to watch the tide go out while she drank her coffee, but just before she turned in to it, she saw a cluster of unfamiliar cars parked outside her house; and even more alarming—a rabid-looking group of strangers inside the gate. Some of them had made themselves comfortable on the old wicker chairs while others were walking around the property, gaping in the windows. They exuded a strange tension, like competitors at the beginning of a race.

“Um . . . Excuse me?” Hallie said, a little too loudly, nearly spilling her coffee on the sidewalk.

The interlopers turned sharply in her direction. But instead of being embarrassed, they appeared put out. Those who were seated jumped to their feet and lunged toward the door, while one woman who was carrying a large, obviously empty shopping bag spoke up in a sharp voice. “Are you the seller?” she asked. And then before Hallie could answer, she added, “We’ve been here for almost a half hour!” The man beside her looked Hallie up and down, taking in the loose hair Lunes called
wild
, her old jeans with a hole at the knee, and a T-shirt bearing the logo of Doyle’s Pub, one of her and Sam’s favorite places to relax in South Boston
.
He nodded to himself, apparently deciding that she conformed to his stereotype of the typical Ptown resident.

Hallie glanced at her wrist, then realized she hadn’t bothered to strap on her watch. “What time is it?”

“Eight-forty!” the man who’d nodded judgmentally at the sight of her yelled out. His tone made it sound like an indictment.

“Eight forty
-three
,” a woman corrected from the porch. When Hallie looked in her direction, she realized it was none other than Mavis Black, her hair a brighter shade of neon orange than ever. Otherwise, she looked no different than she had when Hallie left Provincetown fourteen years earlier.

“
Mavis?
” Hallie mumbled, momentarily forgetting the mob in her yard.

“Very astute of you, Hallie,” Mavis said, eyeing the pastry bag pointedly. “I’ve been waiting here for over a half-hour while you apparently wandered over to Ina’s for a greasy Portuguese doughnut. We’re here for the estate sale.”

The idea of the nosy Mavis wandering through her house, touching Nick’s things was even more repellent than Lunes’s visit had been. Hallie quickly decided she didn’t want
any
of these people stampeding through her rooms, gaping at Wolf’s paintings, or running their hands over the spines of Nick’s books.

“Well, the estate sale doesn’t start till nine,” she said. “I think that gives me seventeen minutes to drink my coffee in peace.”

“But we’re
early birds
,” a woman who was guarding the door with the ferocity of a goalie shouted. “I’m sure you were told to expect early birds.”

Safe behind the screen door, Hallie tried for the third time that day to be courteous in the face of extreme provocation. “If you could please give me a few minutes, there’s something I’ve got to do.”

“No more than five!” the woman by the door warned. “If you take any longer than that, the
regular
crowd will be here. It’s not fair.”

A surge of agreement bubbled up among the group.

True to her word, Hallie promptly reemerged from the house, carrying a large sheet of paper and a piece of tape. “The best I could do,” she said as she covered the sign.

ESTATE SALE CANCELED

GOOD DAY TO ALL!

The people on the porch refused to forfeit their places until a loud murmur went up from those who were close enough to read the sign. “But it was in the
paper
,” a man cried out, waving his cane in the air, and for a moment Hallie was afraid they might storm the place.

“I’m sorry, really I am,” she said. “It’s just that I—I can’t do it.” But since the bargain hunters were too busy venting to one another to listen, she slipped back inside and bolted the door behind her. Then she took her coffee and her
malasada
and went out onto the back stoop to be alone with her bay. She’d been avoiding fatty indulgences since she first learned she was pregnant, but this was an exception. The
malasada
might score poorly nutrition-wise, but it was desperately needed food for her soul. Just like the chilly breeze that rose from the water, and the sight of the boats spackled with salt and barnacles bobbing near the wharf.

A half-hour later she tentatively went inside and peered out the front window. The porch, the yard, and the street were empty, and for a minute Hallie missed the horde of intruders she had sent away. Without them, she was left alone with the decision that would enrage many people she hardly knew, and hugely disappoint the most important person in her life.

Sam had been calling all morning. But instead of answering her cell, she had switched it off. Before she could explain what she’d done, she needed to understand it herself.

W
hen she got home from the
lawyer’s office, she paused briefly at the foot of the stairs, before marching up to the room she’d been avoiding since she first came home. Nick’s bed was casually made and lumpy, as if some secret vestige of himself might still be hiding under the covers. Beside the bed a mountain of books teetered with a photo of Liz Cooper set on top. Nick’s personal summit.

Lying down on the bed, Hallie spread her arms like wings and realized she had never felt more safe anywhere else. This was where she’d come when she’d woken from a nightmare; and there had never been a dark vision Nick couldn’t quell.
It’s not real
, he would say decisively. Then he’d let her lie in the crook of his arm. “
This
,” he’d say.
This is real, Pie. Now tell me—is there anything to fear?
Hallie always believed that the fearlessness that was both her greatest strength and her most dangerous weakness had begun here. She turned on her side and found shelter in her father’s room one more time. Within minutes, she was asleep.

Her rest was disrupted several times by pounding at the door, and by still louder voices at the open window. She didn’t answer any of them. Not even when she heard Felicia’s throaty voice: “Hallie, honey? Come on, I know you’re in there.”

Or when Aunt Del beat her cane distinctively on the window, and growled, “Hallie Costa! What’ve you gone and done now, girl?” But despite her words, there was no mistaking the triumph in her voice. Aunt Del had been trying to dissuade her from selling the house ever since she first heard that Cindy Roderick had put up a sign outside
her
office. Hallie knew she owed both Felicia and Aunt Del an explanation—not to mention her husband. But not sure what it was, she pressed her eyes closed and willed herself back to oblivion.

W
hen she woke up, she was
disappointed to find herself still trapped in the light of the same day. But even before she headed downstairs to choose between the uneaten half of her
malasada
and last night’s cold pizza, she thought about her phone. Though she’d turned it off, she could practically feel it pulsing beside her. She wondered how many times Sam had called—and how long she could possibly avoid telling him about her impulsive decision.

A minute later the intense desire for an eggplant grinder with fresh mozzarella overcame nearly everything else. She waited till just before closing time when the streets were likely to be quiet before she slipped out. By then, she was sure the news had spread through town: Hallie Costa had canceled the sale of Thorne House.

She covered her hair with a hood and took a circuitous route to the market on Bradford Street. After she’d finished her perfect eggplant sandwich, she made her way up to the roof clutching her phone and what was left of her apple juice. By then it was nearly eleven and Sam was probably ready to call the Provincetown Police Department and request a safety check. She flipped the phone open, intending to call home, but instead found herself dialing Neil’s cell. It was the same number he’d had for years, in spite of several moves.

He greeted her with the same upbeat, expectant hello he’d had as a teenager, but he couldn’t maintain the optimistic tone for long. Hallie wasn’t sure whether it was the trial or his stagnant acting career that had changed him, but something was clearly missing. She recalled the deterioration Lunes had described: failing to show up for rehearsals, losing parts, drinking excessively.

“You’re in Provincetown?” he said after she had told him her location. “Hal, that roof was a hazard twenty years ago. Do you really think you should be up there?”

“It’s safe,” Hallie said, remembering the feeling she’d had in her father’s room.
That
, not mugs or telescopes, or even this house, was her real legacy. Hers and Lizzie’s.

Despite her ambivalence, there was so much she wanted to tell Neil. About the grinder she’d had at Georgie’s, and the golden light she woke up to that morning, and why she couldn’t sell the house. She wanted to tell her story in narrowing loops, the way she and Gus and Neil had as teenagers until they eventually converged on the truth.

“It’s not just the physical dangers I’m thinking about. That was your special place, yours and Gus’s, wasn’t it? You’re probably up there reliving everything.”

The whole town was our special place, but I have a new life now
, Hallie wanted to say, but something in Neil’s voice stopped her. There was a loneliness there, a
longing
that he only revealed when he’d had a drink or two. It filled her with sorrow and made her eager to get off the phone. She tried not to think about why none of his relationships ever worked out.

“Anyway, I shouldn’t be bothering you. It’s just being here . . . well, I guess I was feeling nostalgic,” Hallie said. “I probably should let you go, and I need to call Sam.”

“I get that feeling all the time, and I’m not even in Ptown,” Neil said, ignoring the mention of Sam.

The wind had turned cold as Hallie stood there clutching her little phone, and she was shivering as she said goodbye. By the time she hung up, she regretted calling. Neil tried to keep in touch, but they’d only spoken once since the trial—when he called to say he was moving to Chicago. She was about to dial Sam when she heard the front door open and close.

She went to the hatchway and yelled in the direction of the stairs. “Hello?” There was no response. Clinging to both cell phone and flashlight, she descended the ladder to the attic cautiously—unsure if she should make the intruder aware of her presence or not.

But the tread hardly sounded like that of a burglar, or anyone who meant her harm. Instead, it recalled a tired man coming in from work. Hallie heard the refrigerator door opening and closing, followed by the sound of someone rattling through the junk drawer as if they were searching for something. The noises were so familiar that, for one crazy minute, she thought it might be Nick.

The footsteps echoed up the stairs toward the second floor.