Prospect Street (21 page)

“Exactly.”

“The problem is, that
was
me.”

“You'll figure out the new you.”

After her mother left, Faith brushed her unstylish pageboy and wondered if Lydia knew something she didn't. Maybe tonight was the first step on the road to a new and better Faith.

She left for Pavel's house at six-thirty. She wore comfortable shoes and carried the sandals, along with some vegetable paté she'd picked up at Dean and Deluca on M Street. She took her time, enjoying the marginally cooler temperature of evening, and the sights and sounds of her new neighborhood. Despite temperatures in the eighties, brightly colored chrysanthemums graced porches and yards, and harvest wreaths were beginning to appear on front doors.

Finally she arrived at Pavel's house, the painted lady grin
ning among its dowager neighbors. Wisely, he had chosen colors that were appropriate for the historical period but not among the gaudier possibilities. She wondered if this was the way Pavel saw himself. A little different from his neighbors, more creative, more flamboyant and less apt to follow tradition but still—if just barely—in the mainstream.

If she played that game, what would her house say about her? Hemmed in by tradition? Narrow perspective with limited views? She hoped not. She preferred another choice. Integral part of family, neighborhood and history. A keeper of the flame. Now
that
she could live with.

Pavel came out to greet her as if he'd been watching from a window. He stood on his porch, master of all he surveyed, and grinned. “Hey there, lady. Can I interest you in a tour?”

She played along, resting an index finger against her cheek. “I don't know. Does it come with spooky organ music?”

“Only if you want it to.”

She opened a low iron gate and let herself in, climbing the steps to his porch. “I'll want the full-scale production. Music, bats, ghosts.”

“Tame ghost stories, as they go around here.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You put me to shame, Faith. Now I'll have to dig up my sportscoat.”

Actually, Pavel looked pretty good the way he was. His pants were khaki, but they'd been pressed, and she bet his blue shirt had just come off a laundry hanger. He had shaved, and his hair was shorter, although still a tad unruly. She felt just the faintest stab of nostalgia for misshapen T-shirts.

He shepherded her inside. “Wow!” She stood back a little, trying to get the whole effect.

She took a deep breath and quoted: “‘Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me; Tall and sufficient stand behind, and make signs to me; I read the promise, and patiently wait.'” She paused. “Walt Whitman.
Leaves of Grass.
I memorized the poem in high school for a contest. He must have been talking about this house.”

“I'm impressed. I remember about half a dozen naughty limericks and that's it.”

“Don't share.”

“Not at the beginning of the date.”

She was taking in the scenery. The house was asymmetrical, so although a curving staircase and hallway loomed in front of them, the rooms to each side were different in shape and size. To her left was a circular parlor, which was the ground floor of a turret that extended at least two stories. The parlor was almost empty of furniture except for an antique pump organ flanked by a pair of spade-footed candle stands.

Pavel pointed. “Your organ music.”

“Do you play?”

“Not a note.”

To their right was a larger, rectangular room with a fireplace and comfortable masculine furniture of leather and dark walnut. An Oriental carpet of dark reds and golds defined the space. This room looked complete. The wallpaper was an elegant, subtle gold stripe. The mahogany wainscoting shone with a polished luster.

“I started in here,” Pavel said, leading her into the room. “I knew I needed one place to retreat where nothing was left to do. The wainscoting and the rest of the trim were covered in six coats of white paint, but at least no one had removed the woodwork. I called it my ‘board of the day' project.”

She didn't count, but she figured refinishing had taken months.

“There was a false ceiling. Somebody didn't like the height and lowered them all. The plaster was cracked, but the medallion and cornice mouldings were still intact.”

She followed his finger to gaze at skillfully wrought grapevines held by winged cherubs, strangely not at odds with the masculine furnishings.

“The fireplace was boarded over and the mantel carted away, although the cast iron insert was still here. I studied similar houses and found this one on a trip to London. The stone is Der
byshire fossil. The mantel was taken from a house just a little older than this one. What do you think?”

“It's wonderful. The whole room is lovely. It's a place to relax and be yourself.” And it was, but her eyes were already wandering.

“Okay, you've seen the future. We'll wander through the present into the past.”

They spent the next half hour viewing everything that was left to do, ending in Pavel's kitchen. He had opted for the twenty-first century here, black granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, light cherry cabinetry. Windows looked over the wraparound porch, which descended to a yard with clipped, if unimaginative, shrubbery. Only a black-and-white tile floor, probably installed sometime in the 1950s, was jarring.

“So, what do you think?” Pavel spread his arms to encompass it. “I have running water now. I have appliances, counters.”

“I'm pea-green.”

“The floor's next, probably cherry and walnut parquet, then I'll be finished in here.” He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of champagne as she seated herself on a stool at the center island. He held it up. “I thought we'd celebrate.”

“What, exactly?”

“Friendship. Houses. Georgetown. There's always a good reason for champagne.”

“I brought paté.” She fished the plastic bag out of her purse and held it out to him. Their fingers touched as he reached for it, but he didn't withdraw.

“You know, this is probably the first time I've showed the house to a woman who hasn't asked me why I'm doing all the work myself.”

“I know why. What would you do if somebody else came in and finished it? Sell the house? Start on another one? You want the thrill to last. You want the house to really be yours when you're done. Am I close?”

“You saw some of the mistakes I've made. Some of the problems I've uncovered that I don't have a clue how to fix yet.”

She was aware that their fingers were still touching, and that neither one of them seemed inclined to end the contact. “I saw some skilled detail work, as well. Was your father handy? Did you learn what you know as a boy?”

“I never knew my father, and my mother never remarried.”

“I'm sorry.”

He shrugged. “She's gone now, too. That was one of the reasons I left the West Coast. No family to worry about, and I knew I could make friends anywhere I went.”

“Not the kind of friends you grow up with, though. The kind who stand behind you through thick and thin.”

“You have friends like that?”

“I didn't let them stand anywhere near me when David left.”

“Too personal?” He took the paté and got plates out of the cupboard. She watched him dump crackers on a tray, along with the paté carton. He went back to pop the cork on the champagne, and she resisted the urge to place the crackers in neat little rows.

“I was raised to keep everything to myself,” she said, when he was standing in front of her again. She brightened a little. “Hey, I could work for the CIA. I have all the right credentials. I never thought of that.”

Pavel's nostrils flared, and she laughed. “I'm kidding. Besides, David's outing probably destroyed my security clearance.”

“You can laugh about that?”

“Not at David's situation. He's never going to get a job like the one he had. In political circles, once the mighty have fallen, their so-called friends tend to step over the body.”

“You've come a long way if you can worry about him.”

“And I'm talking about this with a virtual stranger. I guess I'm not my father's daughter anymore.”

Pavel poured champagne into two crystal flutes. “Say a little more. I dare you.”

“About what?”

“About your father. Something tells me you're just getting started.”

She took her glass and cradled it between her palms. “Do you know why he named me Faith?”

“No, but the world probably expected a little Charity to come down the line after you.”

“I was at the Georgetown library today, and I asked the librarian to copy some of the articles on Hope's kidnapping. And you know what the headline of the first one was?” She lifted her glass in toast. “Hope Is Lost.”

“Ouch.”

“My father named me Faith to make a statement. When Hope is lost, you must have Faith.”

“He didn't.”

“He certainly never admitted it out loud, but the message was there. He was a man the voters could count on. Nothing could strike Joe Huston down. A man with faith. A righteous man.”

“Hard to love, though.”

She couldn't deny it. “There wasn't much chance Charity was next in line. Charity of any kind was never my father's greatest priority.” She sipped, then added, “Frankly, neither was having more children. My father tried it twice, failed flam-boyantly the first time, found it messy and inconvenient the second, and passed on the chance to do it again.”

“I can't imagine you were ever messy or inconvenient.”

“Imagine what the senator would have thought if he'd had a normal daughter? One with a mind of her own?”

“You have a mind of your own, Faith.”

“Not one I've exercised very often.” She smiled, to let him know this wasn't a pity party.

“So where does that leave you?”

“Sitting in a stranger's kitchen, reciting my life story.”

He leaned across the island and propped his elbows in front of her. “Can you be happy again?”

She wanted to smile, to say something flippant or sophisticated. But she couldn't. His brown eyes were troubled, and even though she didn't know him well, she thought that was unusual.

He was digging deeper now. She could feel him reaching toward her, even though he didn't move. Her answer seemed important to him. It was important to her, as well.

She leaned across the island and inclined her head, kissing him softly on the lips, a kiss that lasted longer than she'd expected, a kiss that was meant to be reassuring and turned into a question of its own.

His lips were warm and tasted of champagne, and the only thing wrong with kissing Pavel here, now, was that a granite island kept them from touching more intimately.

She settled back on her stool and smiled. “I can be happy again.”

F
aith arrived home just a little before Remy and Alex were due. She and Pavel had joined his friends at Sea Catch on the C & O Canal, where they'd settled on a narrow, tree-shaded balcony to eat some of the best seafood in the District. Joan and Carter Melvin were nearly as laid-back as Pavel, accepting her into their circle immediately with a warm, casual welcome.

She was surprised by how much she had enjoyed sampling crabcakes and chatting. Joan and Carter had recently bought a house in Glover Park, just over the Georgetown border. They, too, were in the midst of renovations, as, it seemed, was half the city. They were also interested in history.

“You're actually doing a history of your house?” Joan, an attractive brunette in her late forties, seemed fascinated. “From the ground up?”

Faith was delighted to talk about it. “I have all sorts of ideas. Photos, blueprints, copies of documents, maybe even a watercolor or charcoal drawing for the front cover.”

“You're turning a simple history into a book,” Pavel said.

“I guess. I want it to be a keepsake, something to pass down
through generations. Each new crop of owners shouldn't have to dig up the history all over again.”

Joan sat back, pushing away a plate still heaped with seafood linguine. “Will you do my house next?”

Faith hoped she was joking. “I'll make notes on how to find answers and help you when you're ready.”

“I'm not kidding. Would you consider doing the history for our new house?” Joan hurried on, before Faith could find a tactful excuse. “I'm not asking as a favor. You obviously love this, and you said you were going to be looking for a job. Why not offer your services at a price?”

Carter Melvin worked in public relations at Scavenger and was only a shade more buttoned-down than his boss. “Every upwardly mobile public servant wants to be able to brag about who lived or died in his row house. Georgetown alone could keep you busy for years. Hell, Jack Kennedy lived in half the houses—and visited the other half.”

Faith thought about Nancy Reagan's friend, who'd confessed to wishing somebody else would do her research. Nancy's friend, who would probably pay almost anything Faith asked to have that annoying burden lifted, who would display the history prominently and tell her friends where to find the author. And there were many more just like her.

“
I'd
hire you, too,” Pavel said. “And not to help you. I'd love to know what you can find out.”

“I'm beginning to see how Scavenger got off the ground,” Faith said.

The others had laughed good-naturedly and gone on to another topic.

But Faith wasn't laughing. The idea had nibbled at her for the rest of the evening. She needed a job, preferably one that could make use of her extensive contacts in the city. She had a degree in history, and, yes, it was European history, but what did that matter? She had learned how to research, how to dig deeper and proceed with caution. Perhaps the scope had been larger, but the methodology was similar.

And how wonderful to be able to work at home, to be there when the children arrived from school, to take time off when they needed her. They were growing up, but they still needed supervision and support.

Of course, she had a lot to learn. She knew she was hooked when the thought of all that work only excited her.

By the time the children walked in, followed by her mother, she was flying high. Good food. New friends. A possible career solution. And, of course, Pavel Quinn, who didn't belong at the end of the list.

“You look like you had a good evening,” Lydia said.

Faith saw Remy watching her. Remy was clearly not excited that her mother had enjoyed herself. “We had a nice time.” Faith settled for describing their meal.

The children trooped upstairs, bickering about who needed to use the bathroom first, and Lydia left for her drive back to Great Falls. Faith turned off the lights and made sure doors and windows were locked, then went up to get ready for bed.

An hour later, when the children closed their bedroom doors for the last time and the house was finally argument free, she still lay awake, staring at the ceiling.

In just a few months she would be divorced. After she'd discovered David with Abraham Stein, she'd been sure she never wanted another man in her life. She still couldn't imagine being married to anyone else—she had already spent too many years as someone's underappreciated wife. This was the time to find out who she was.

But now, for the first time since her life had changed so dramatically, she realized that she had been thinking in absolutes. She wasn't Joe Huston's child for nothing. Her role had changed. She had changed. The world had changed, and she was free, for the very first time, to make the decisions that would affect her most. Like whether she should sleep with Pavel Quinn.

She smiled in the darkness. Pavel hadn't invited her into his bed. He seemed comfortable with a casual relationship. She re
membered what a come-on felt like, and not because she'd experienced one recently. Pavel was polite, informal, friendly.

But Pavel wanted her.

Their fingers had touched. Their bodies had brushed. She had kissed him across a black granite island. Tonight he had hugged her at her front door. Quickly, but she'd had the distinct impression that the speed of the embrace had had more to do with not giving away his state of arousal than with disinterest.

She wasn't sure she was ready for sex. She wasn't even sure she was very good at it. But she
was
sure that having a man want her was the most powerful aphrodisiac out there.

She had no time to savor that thought. A yowl sounded from the attic. Her heart stopped, then made up for the pause with an extra beat. She sat up and grabbed her robe. “Stupid cat.” She felt better the moment she said it. It wasn't Guest's fault that she sounded like a baby crying.

“What's going on?” Remy stumbled into the hall at the same moment her mother did. “Why's she crying?” Alex came out, too.

The cat had made it clear she didn't want their interference. Food was good. Water and litter were fine. But any time they'd tried to extend the relationship, Guest hissed and spat. Faith was determined to take the whole feline family in to the vet to be checked and immunized, but so far she hadn't had the nerve to attempt the capture.

“We have to go up in the attic and see,” Faith told them.

“What if something's wrong with the kittens?” Remy didn't sound tough now.

“Let's not borrow trouble.” Faith went into Alex's room and opened the attic door.

Guest stood at the bottom, a gray carbon copy of herself hanging from her jaws. As they jumped back, Guest trotted past them, the kitten mewling and waving tiny paws in protest. The felines started down the hall toward Remy's room.

“Mom, it's hot as heck up there!” Alex was waving his hand as a wave of heat hit him.

Faith climbed two steps to the fan switch and flipped it. Nothing happened. “The fan's not working. Maybe we blew a fuse.”

“The kittens were getting cooked,” Alex said.

“There's an image.” Faith was watching Remy, who had tiptoed after Guest. Now Remy stood in her own bedroom doorway. Faith joined her.

Guest emerged from an open drawer in Remy's dresser and hopped to the floor. She paused until they moved aside, then started back down the hallway and up the stairs.

“Is she going to bring them all down here?” Remy whispered, as if Guest might not like conversation.

“I'd say so.” Faith watched her daughter's expression. She hadn't seen Remy this excited in months. She looked as if she'd just been given a pony or a new bicycle, the way she had looked so often before her young life fell to pieces.

“Why did she choose my room?” Remy asked.

Faith hoped Alex would understand. After all, he had Lefty, who was now at home in a real cage, with an exercise wheel and the latest in mouse care technology. “She knows a friend when she sees one.”

“You are so bogus.”

“I know,” Faith said modestly.

Guest passed with another kitten, this one white and feistier than its sibling. Eventually two more, a black-and-white and what might be a tortoiseshell, made the journey before Guest settled into the drawer for the night. That was one more kitten than they'd guessed.

“Thus endeth the saga of the ghost baby in the attic,” Faith said. “Tomorrow they go to the vet.” She dashed upstairs to grab the litter, food and water, before the heat immobilized her.

The children disappeared again into their rooms, Remy with the supplies and more enthusiasm than usual.

Faith was smiling when she got back into bed after snapping the circuit breaker and restarting the fan. She was positive that she wouldn't sleep for a while. She focused on a neat stack of
papers she'd set beside her bed and debated whether to look through the articles Dorothy had copied for her.

In the end she propped herself up on a pillow and paged through them. The house gradually fell silent as she set the copies in chronological order. This was only a portion of what was available, but Dorothy had tried to give her a taste of what had been written over the weeks when Hope's kidnapping was front page news.

“Hope is lost.” She shook her head. She wondered what her life would have been like if Hope hadn't been lost, if she had grown up with a sister to confide in and fight with and stand beside when the going got rough in the Huston home. Maybe she would have developed more backbone.

“On July 18th, the newborn daughter of Congressman Joe Huston and his wife Lydia, nee Charles, was kidnapped from the family's Georgetown home.”

Faith looked up, and her gaze circled the room. She sighed and glanced back at the article. One paragraph later, she put it aside for daylight hours and got up to find her favorite collection of Dave Barry's columns. She knew if she didn't find something to laugh about, she wouldn't sleep at all.

 

Lydia rearmed the security system and called down to the guest cottage to reassure Samuel, the young man who watched over the Great Falls property, that she had arrived home safely. She was sure he already knew. In exchange for the cottage and a salary, he kept watch over all the Hustons' comings and goings and served as a chauffeur when Joe didn't want to drive himself to the Senate office building or to meetings around the city. If Lydia hadn't arrived home in time, he would have tracked her down with the help of the global positioning system in her Mercedes or notified the authorities. She and Joe had learned the hard way about the importance of personal safety precautions.

She turned off everything but the hall light and started toward the wing where her bedroom was located. Joe was prob
ably hard at work in the other wing. He was known to routinely attend parties and leave before the serious drinking could begin. He worked the room; then, business completed, he departed for home before the real party animals got started.

Alex and Remy hadn't seen much of him tonight. Joe came home from a reception at the National Archives, made one obligatory foray into the family room where the remarkable X-Men soared and oozed over the screen, asked how the children were doing in school, told Alex to get his feet off the coffee table; and left muttering under his breath about Hollywood violence. She saw the look that passed between her grandchildren and wondered how often she had been a cause of it herself.

In her room she changed into a long cotton gown, then sat at her dressing table to remove her jewelry and makeup. She wasn't pleased at her reflection. No matter how hard a woman fought, eventually the years took their toll. No surgery, diet or fitness regime could turn back the clock. She was sixty-six and felt every year of it.

In bed at last, she lay on her side with her eyes squeezed shut and wondered if she would have the dream again tonight. Oddly enough, she'd had it less frequently since Faith moved to Prospect Street. She wasn't sure, but she thought it had to do with the improvements Faith was making. She loved watching the house come alive again, although she hadn't expected to feel this way. She had expected the house to be a painful reminder of the worst moment in her life. Instead, as she watched Faith cope with the renovations, she found herself remembering the excitement she'd felt as a young wife fixing up her first home.

That had been long ago, of course. She wasn't usually given to reminiscences, because most often they were shackled with guilt. Now she thought of a time when the house was newly hers and Joe was newly hers, as well. She hadn't been sixty-six forever. Once she had been twenty-six, filled with energy and confidence, a young woman who had chosen her husband from an impressive list of suitors. She had been enthusiastic about life and sure of love.

How long ago that had been.

 

Lydia chose slender pink tapers to grace the table where she and Joe would eat their first meal together since their return from a brief honeymoon in Bermuda. She polished the sterling candlesticks, despite the fact that they hadn't had time to tarnish since the April wedding. She had visited a flower vendor on Wisconsin Avenue and carefully chosen six pink-and-white peonies, and now she arranged them in a Czech crystal vase with greenery from what remained of her grandmother's garden.

Their wedding china, creamy white with thin borders of silver and gold, rested on a pale avocado linen tablecloth her college roommate had given them, and the new silver place settings with the delicate shell-shaped handles rested on cream-colored napkins from one of Joe's aunts.

Early June in Georgetown was definitely summer. Today the temperature had soared unexpectedly to ninety and the air practically sizzled. She had almost forgotten about summers here, how they could wilt even the most stalwart. As a child she had lived in Bombay and later in Samoa. She knew heat and humidity intimately, but she'd forgotten that sometimes Washington felt like the tropics, too.