*
Back in New York, Margaret questioned the new relationship. Only weeks before, she had been certain she would never love someone again, and now she was just as certain she couldn’t live without Pebble. She’d spent a decade on an analyst’s couch dissecting her dreams and emotions to understand why she chose relationships that were wrong for her. She’d spent her life trying to avoid the same fate as her parents, who had been miserable in their marriage, but she had settled for a miserable love life. Her attraction to Bill Gaston had been detrimental to her self-esteem from the moment she met him. He was a serial philanderer, and she had allowed him to hurt her time and time again. Then there was Michael, whose huge and fragile ego often cloaked their happiness in angst and anger. Margaret had never had a full, mature, and loving relationship. Now she was in love with a much younger man, which Freud would most likely have attributed to a skipped stage in her emotional growth.
Before long, though, Margaret forced herself to stop worrying. She knew she would damage this relationship by second-guessing every statement, emotion, and motivation. Had a technical explanation of what she was feeling ever changed what she felt? She decided that the scrutiny she put herself through in the past had amounted to nothing more than wasted energy. At the center of it all was fear: fear of being her mother, fear of losing her family, fear of losing Bill or Michael. This time, she wasn’t going to be afraid of what came next. She loved him and knew he loved her. She wasn’t going to miss this chance for happiness. She had spent years in analysis, but this time, she didn’t want to analyze why she was attracted to Pebble. They loved each other. It was as simple as that. She finally felt healed.
*
Before returning to Cumberland to be with Pebble, she had to straighten out her contract with Golden Books. Georges Duplaix was still in Paris, so she met with her Golden editor, Lucille Ogle, who described the details of the new contract to Margaret. Golden would only be required to accept three, not four, manuscripts per year from Margaret. They weren’t, though, required to publish any of the manuscripts they accepted, but would pay her a small kill fee for any they did not agree to publish. Nor was Golden required to let her know which manuscripts they rejected or accepted until the contract expired. Margaret realized that this could tie up many of her works for years. This was not at all what she and Georges discussed. She was furious and dictated a scathing telegram to Lucille, threatening to never work with Golden again if they didn’t live up to the arrangement she and Georges had first discussed.
To Georges, Margaret wrote that he should be glad the ocean was between them. She confessed to having lost her temper with Lucille and to having sent a nasty telegram. Then she said that after reflecting on the situation, she would like to send that telegram again. She knew she was his prize author, and the deal was simply unfair. If he didn’t live up to what he had promised, then when she came to France in August she would shoot him with her bow and arrow.
*
Georges’s recollection of their agreement differed greatly from Margaret’s. In his letter, he tried to lighten the situation by saying he wasn’t certain if the ripples he felt all the way in France came from America’s testing of the atomic bomb or from the explosion between Cobble Court and his offices at Rockefeller Center.
However frustrated Margaret was, she also knew it was in her best interest to keep her business dealings productive. She was not going to let her relationship with Golden be derailed the way hers had been with Bill Scott. Eager to leave New York, she turned the issue over to Harriet Pilpel to resolve. She also asked Harriet to prepare a will, but to only draft it in a provisional way because she would surely change it many times before it was complete. Short of money once again, she asked Harriet how much it would cost to prepare the will, because most of her money was tied up in Golden’s profits. She wanted to get as far away from the whole mess as possible. She packed her bags, put Crispian in the car, and drove to Florida. She couldn’t wait to be by Pebble’s side again.
*
Three days later, she was on a dock, listening to a chorus of insects and birds play against the constant swoosh of metal on wood as Pebble drew his plane over his boat, the Mandalay. Pebble was busy preparing the vessel for its maiden voyage around the world. Moored to a small wooden boathouse in the waters of the marsh-lined Intracoastal Waterway, the Mandalay glistened in the bright Florida morning sunlight. Margaret sat and watched Pebble work—his brown back bent over the hull as he slid a plane across the wood, smoothing out the rough edges of the boat. He whistled softly while she looked on with affection. Pebble climbed up to the halyards of the mast and secured the O in the rigging. He shimmied down with his hunting knife in his belt. He is completely comfortable with himself, Margaret thought. This is a man doing something he loves. Their month together had brought them much closer. Without Pebble ever uttering a formal proposal, both understood that they would spend the rest of their lives together.
Later that afternoon, Pebble needed to go hunting; it was his turn to find a deer for the family larder. Margaret wanted to go with him. It surprised him that someone who wrote so dearly of little bunnies and furry things also was a hunter. They set off in the family car and parked where the sea and the forest met, where the shoreline was dotted with weathered white branches of ancient oaks. In the wooded dunes, huge tree branches towered high and dipped low to the ground in graceful curves. Margaret remembered these trees from the walks she had taken in these woods with her cousins, how as a child she’d flashed a light into the eyes of toads and a whip-poor-will, then something more frightening. Now, with Pebble by her side, she saw these twisted trees only as a wonderland of plants, animals, sea, and freshwater. He selected a spot beside some bushes, and they perched on a dune to await their prey. A doe passed by, and even though he saw no fawn, Pebble held his fire. Later, when a buck peeked around a tree, he shot, and the deer fell.