One Year (10 page)

M
ary Bernadette pulled into the space reserved for her outside the headquarters of Fitzgibbon Landscaping. Although she no longer managed the company on a daily basis, she made it a habit to visit the office regularly to review the accounts, to inspect the bathroom for cleanliness, to check the inventory of office staples, and to cast an eye over the condition of the reception area (the candy bowl should always be filled and a box of tissues always on hand). It wasn't that she didn't
trust
her grandson's wife to keep things shipshape. It was that Mary Bernadette had always believed that to get a job done properly one had to do it oneself. And Alexis was young. Youth needed to be managed and advised if it was to blossom into full maturity. Rules and regulations and punishments for not following them were necessary for true growth.

Today, Mary Bernadette had a particular mission in mind. “Good morning, Alexis,” she said, removing her trench and hanging it on the rack to the right of the door.

Alexis looked up briefly from her computer screen. “Good morning,” she said, her fingers tapping away on the keyboard at great speed.

Mary Bernadette cast a critical eye over her grandson's wife. While there was no denying that Alexis always made a clean and neat appearance, there was something lacking when it came to her ability to dress like a representative of an established and reputable company. Take what she was wearing today—a blindingly bright orange sweater and a pair of earrings that dangled to her shoulders. Well, Mary Bernadette thought, she wouldn't be surprised to learn that Mrs. Trenouth hadn't spent any time at all teaching her daughter about seemly attire. The woman had come to the wedding baring more cleavage than Oliver's Well had seen on display in its three hundred or so years.

“Alexis,” she said. “I'd like to talk to you for a moment.”

“One sec, let me just . . . Done.”

Alexis looked up again from the computer screen and smiled. “What is it, Mary Bernadette?”

“I was thinking,” she said, “that you might want to dress a little more—appropriately—for the office.”

Alexis's eyes widened. “But no one sees me,” she said. “I mean, clients rarely come to the office. Most times PJ meets them at their homes.”

“Still, you might want to wear more neutrals and less loud color.” Mary Bernadette smiled. “In fact, I'll tell my friend Anne you'll be coming into her shop to try on a few things. The Sophisticated Lady is where I get all of my clothes.”

“Oh.” Alexis looked down at her orange sweater. “But I'm not sure—”

“Anne can always order your size if she doesn't have it in stock. She's very obliging that way, which is part of what makes her such a success in business. It's all about the customers, you see. When one of our clients comes into the office, he wants to be reassured his hard-earned money is being well spent. And a soberly dressed office staff adds to the atmosphere of responsibility and respectability. It reassures the client that Fitzgibbon Landscaping is not going to let him down. I'm sure you can see that.”

Alexis nodded. “Yes. Sorry. I didn't mean to offend anyone.”

Mary Bernadette turned her high-wattage smile on her grandson's wife. “Of course you didn't. Now, is there anything you need me for before I head off?”

Alexis smiled back, a bit anemically Mary Bernadette thought, and shook her head.

“Then I'll be off.” And, retrieving her trench coat, she was.

A
lexis looked at the big clock over the stove. Where
was
he? She had been waiting impatiently for PJ to get home so that she could talk to him about what had happened earlier with his grandmother.

The fact was that Mary Bernadette had made her feel like a troublemaker. Alexis had
never
been a troublemaker—at least, no one had ever scolded her for being one—and it sat badly that now, as a married woman, she should be told that she was behaving—or, dressing—in a way that might upset people. And the worst part about the whole thing was the small, niggling doubt that Mary Bernadette was
right
in always correcting her and that she had been fooling herself, or that others had been fooling her, into thinking she was a sensible and sensitive person.

PJ had barely come through the door and tossed his jacket on the couch when Alexis blurted, “Your grandmother doesn't think I dress appropriately for the office.”

“Hi to you, too.”

“Sorry. Hi.”

PJ came over and kissed his wife on the cheek. “Okay, so how do you know she doesn't think you dress appropriately? Did she say something?”

“Yes. Today. I mean, it's not like I'm showing up to work wearing a tank top and shorts! I'm always dressed nicely. Okay, sometimes I wear jeans, but it's not like they're ripped. And
everybody
wears jeans these days!”

“Well, you know how conservatively Grandmother dresses,” PJ pointed out. “It's just her way. She's always been proper. Have you ever seen pictures of her from the sixties and seventies? It's as if the whole movement toward casual never happened in her world.”

“But why does that have to be my way, too?”

PJ smiled. “I'm not saying you have to wear matching outfits. But I don't know, maybe you could make an effort to dress a bit more—what's the word? Formally? Just at the office. Just for Grandmother's sake.”

“Well, sure, I guess. But it's . . .” Alexis hesitated.

“But it's what?” PJ asked.

“It's that your grandmother is always butting into our lives. We have virtually no privacy. She even coopted our anniversary!”

PJ frowned. “We talked about that. You said you understood.”

“I did but . . . PJ, she tells me how to
file
. Everyone knows how to file! A goes before B goes before C!”

PJ laughed. “Okay, that's going a bit far, but I'm sure she's just trying to be helpful.”

“And why does she insist on keeping paper files, anyway? Every time I suggest making everything electronic, she freaks out, like I'm suggesting setting fire to the place.”

“She's wary of change. She always has been. It's one of the things that makes her such a force for the OWHA.”

Alexis frowned. “You know, I could make us a lot more money working for someone else.”

“But why would you want to work for a stranger?” PJ asked. “Besides, we make enough money. Well, we will, someday. There's plenty of time. And we have it really good here, don't we? The cottage is great.”

Alexis half laughed. “Yeah. But she sneaks in when we're not home.”

“What?”

Alexis bit her lip. She hadn't planned on telling PJ this, but the words had been spoken and she couldn't take them back.

“Your grandmother,” she said. “She sneaks in. She rearranges things. Once she put the Adrienne Jonas portrait you gave me in the bottom drawer of the desk.”

PJ burst out laughing. “That's hilarious!”

“It's not funny, PJ. And I know it's her. Who else would it be?”

“Well, the cottage
is
hers. She and my grandfather own it.”

“But that doesn't give her the right to sneak in behind our backs!”

“She has a key, Ali. She's hardly sneaking in. Besides, maybe she just wants to make sure the place is okay.”

“What do you mean by okay? Clean? Is she worried we're going to write on the walls or damage the woodwork?”

PJ sighed. “I'm sure she means well. She's just used to being in charge, that's all. It'll take some time before she realizes that she can trust us with the business. Once she's sure we're not going to bankrupt the family, she'll back off.”

Why don't I believe that,
Alexis thought. “Can't you ask her not to come in when we're not at home?”

PJ took her in his arms—she protested only a bit—and kissed her on the lips. “Oh, come on, Ali,” he said. “Just think of her as, I don't know, as a good old-fashioned character out of a novel. She might be a little unusual, but she means absolutely no harm, believe me.”

“Are you positive she doesn't read our mail? Envelopes can be steamed open and then resealed.”

PJ sighed. “Ali.”

Why, Alexis wondered, wouldn't her husband stand up for her? But then he kissed her again and she responded with more enthusiasm this time, and suddenly the craziness with Mary Bernadette really didn't seem all that important. At least, not as important as she had been making it out to be. At least, not at that moment.

PJ let her go. “I'm going to go see Grandpa for a bit,” he said. “I need to buy a new mower and I want his opinion on the model.”

“Don't be long,” Alexis said. “I'm making one of your favorite dishes for dinner. Pasta with carbonara sauce.”

PJ left the cottage and Alexis set to work preparing dinner. And while she worked she thought back to the early days of their relationship. PJ had told her all about his grandparents and their landscaping business, about his lawyer parents and his younger brother and sister, about his aunt who was a nun. He had told her that he loved them all and that especially after the birth of the twins his grandparents had become almost like parents to him. But Alexis had never really understood until now just
how
much they all meant to him. What she
had
understood was that PJ was a good-hearted and honest young man who loved his family. And there was nothing to complain about in that. His devotion had appealed to her. It had struck her as old-fashioned in a good, Hallmark Channel sort of way.

And now that she was a Fitzgibbon . . . well, she still did admire PJ's dedication to his family. Of course she did. It was just that it would be nice if he put her first, before the others. Wasn't that what a husband or a wife was supposed to do?

The bacon was cooked and sliced. An egg, still in its shell, sat in a bowl by the stove. The lettuce was washed and the vegetables were cut for a salad. The parmesan was grated. Alexis looked up at the big, round clock above the stove. It was now almost seven o'clock. PJ had been at his grandparents' house for a little over half an hour. She turned off the gas under the pan of boiling water.

A wave of annoyance swept through Alexis. She reached for her cell phone to call PJ, and then put it down.
Well,
she told herself firmly,
it could be worse. At least he's not out picking up women at bars
. And she poured a glass of wine. And she waited.

P
addy and Mary Bernadette were having breakfast—including a pot of proper tea properly made—when the phone rang.

“I'll get it,” Mary Bernadette told her husband. “Finish your eggs before they get cold.”

A few moments later she hung the phone back on its base and returned to the table. “That was Richard Armstrong,” she said. “He's just had some very interesting news.”

Paddy put aside the morning paper. “Oh? And what is it?”

“It seems that we're to have a new member of the community,” Mary Bernadette went on, her tone at odds with the excitement she felt. “Wynston Meadows has decided to take up residence in Oliver's Well. I'm sure you've heard of him. He made millions of dollars working for some sort of investment company. A hedge fund I think.”

Paddy nodded. “I've seen the name in the papers.”

“And word has it that he's heard of the OWHA's fine work and is interested in knowing more about us.”

“Well,” Paddy said, “I hope he won't be throwing wild parties and disturbing his neighbors.”

“I don't think a man of importance like Wynston Meadows wastes his time on parties. He's probably at his desk until all hours, tending to business.”

Paddy frowned. “Work hard and play hard, that's what those flashy types go for.”

Mary Bernadette ignored her husband's last remark. “Given that he's already expressed an interest in the Oliver's Well Historical Association,” she said, “he'll definitely want to make a contribution.”
Maybe,
she thought,
a contribution big enough to allow us to finally achieve our greatest goal to date, the purchase of the Branley Estate
.

“We can't know that for sure,” Paddy pointed out. “Don't leap to conclusions, Mary.”

“Well, of course we can't know anything for sure. But it seems to me it would be in his best interest as a new and potentially important resident of Oliver's Well to show his support for our history and traditions.”

Paddy murmured a reply and stuck his head back into the newspaper. Really, Mary Bernadette thought. He could be such a naysayer. Why did he bother to carry a four-leafed clover in his wallet if he didn't believe in the possibility of luck and good fortune ?

The back door opened then, and PJ came into the kitchen. “Morning, everyone.”

“Did you have your breakfast yet?” Mary Bernadette asked.

“No. Alexis left early for the office and there was only cold cereal in the house. I thought maybe you were whipping up some eggs.”

Mary Bernadette got up from the table and went to the fridge. “Have you heard the news?” she asked. “Wynston Meadows has moved to town. Or is about to arrive, it's unclear as of yet.”

“
The
Wynston Meadows?” PJ asked, taking the seat his grandmother had vacated. “The guy who's always in the paper? The one who owns, like, half of the East Coast? And he's only in his forties!”

Paddy rattled the paper and cleared his throat.

“One and the same,” Mary Bernadette affirmed. “Richard Armstrong just called. There was a man at The Angry Squire last night. He'd just come down from D.C. and he told the bartender, that nice young man Jeff Brown, that the news all over D.C. is that Wynston Meadows has decided to make Oliver's Well his home. What's more, he's expressed a great interest in the OWHA.”

Paddy coughed.

PJ accepted the plate of warm scrambled eggs his grandmother handed him. “This could be really good for Fitzgibbon Landscaping,” he said. “He's bound to have bought some huge property. Maybe he'll want a water feature, or a walled herb garden. Boy, I'd love to design a good old-fashioned folly!”

Paddy looked out from behind his paper. “Now, don't go putting the cart before the horse.”

His wife came back to the table with a plate of bacon and one of toast. “It's the bread you like, PJ. Not that cardboard stuff I found in your cupboard the other day.”

“Alexis likes that. It's got a lot of fiber.”

“Yes, well, what about taste?” Mary Bernadette turned to her husband. “Anyway, Paddy, PJ is not putting the cart before the horse. He's just thinking ahead, like a good businessman. He's spotted an opportunity and he won't let it pass.”

Paddy retreated behind the Oliver's Well
Gazette
once more. Mary Bernadette watched with satisfaction as her grandson ate his breakfast.