One Year (13 page)

“F
ancy running into you in Oliver's Well's only pharmacy!”

Alexis laughed. “Hi, Maureen. It
is
a small town, isn't it?”

Maureen put her hand on Alexis's arm. “And it gets smaller the longer you've lived here.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Depends. I don't mean to sound enigmatic, but we all find out the answer to that question in time.”

“Oh. Hey, I missed you at our St. Patrick's Day dinner. Well, at Mary Bernadette's dinner.”

“I had a party to go to. It's the same group of us every year, mostly people from the office, and frankly, it's gotten pretty dismal.” Maureen laughed. “But it's something to do.”

Alexis smiled. “Well, maybe next year you could join us, instead. Not that it was all that exciting! Well, except for your father. He has a beautiful voice. And Mary Bernadette's soda bread
is
amazing.”

“Yes, he does, and yes, it is.”

“Did he ever sing professionally?”

Maureen looked startled by the question. “Oh, no. People like us don't reach for the stars. We're content with what's right here in front of us. At least, we're supposed to be. Wait. That sounded as if I was criticizing my parents, and I'm not. I'm actually criticizing myself.”

Before Alexis could form a suitable reply to this oddly revealing statement, Maureen spoke again. “By the way, have you seen the famous Wynston Meadows around town? My mother can't stop talking about him. You'd think he was JFK resurrected.”

“I might have,” Alexis said, “but I have no idea what he looks like. I hate to admit this, but I don't really keep up with the local news the way I probably should.”

“The town's agog with excitement. It's been ages since Oliver's Well had a genuine celebrity. Personally, his being here doesn't matter to me, unless of course he decides to make trouble in some way. But I can't see why he'd bother. What could Oliver's Well possibly mean to a man who could buy out Donald Trump?”

“I have no idea. Are you going to Norma Campbell's party, to welcome him to town?” Alexis asked.

“I haven't been invited,” Maureen said. “Not important enough, but my boss is going. As are my parents, thanks to Mom's being on the board of the OWHA.”

“Well, I have to go—PJ calls it a command performance—but I'm not really looking forward to it. It sounds pretty dull and stuffy to me.”

Maureen laughed. “Take it from someone who's perfected the art of staying on the sidelines. No party is entirely dull or stuffy when you set yourself up as a people watcher. You avoid being drawn into boring chitchat and you get to observe all the odd behavior that comes out when an unlikely group of people are forced to socialize.”

“I'm guessing that people are going to be stumbling over their own feet trying to get a word with Mr. Meadows.”

“That could be worth a laugh! Well, I must run. Wharton Insurance waits for no man. Or in this case, woman.”

Maureen headed back to her office and Alexis to her car. Maureen Kline, she thought, was a bit of a puzzle. What was that she had said about staying on the sidelines—did she really mean on the sidelines of life? And about people like her not reaching for the stars. And there was the fact that Maureen Kline was so plain, almost deliberately so. She dressed in such a dowdy way, she wore no makeup, and there were wide streaks of gray in her brown hair. Maybe she truly didn't care about her appearance. Maybe she was without vanity. Maybe that's what she meant by staying on the sidelines; she meant that she didn't like to call attention to herself. Alexis smiled as she got behind the wheel and started the engine. God knew
she
had her fair share of vanity! It had depressed her to go into The Sophisticated Lady and allow Anne Tribble—a very nice woman, in fact—to choose for her a few basic tops, blouses, pants, and skirts in tan and navy and taupe and white. “Perfect for the office,” Anne had assured her. The clothing was well made, but every time Alexis wore the white blouse and navy pants or the tan silk top with the navy skirt to sit behind her desk at Fitzgibbon Landscaping, she felt like a bit of a fraud.

Vanity, thy name is woman
. And this made Alexis think of nuns, who once had been compelled to live narrow, unadventurous lives stuck in some gloomy convent praying for sinners in the nasty outside world—and they certainly hadn't worn makeup or dyed their hair to cover the gray! But things had changed. A contemporary nun like PJ's Aunt Grace didn't spend her days contemplating the evils of everyday life. She was out making a difference for the better. The stories Alexis had heard from the family made Grace Fitzgibbon out to be a very dynamic woman, but Alexis couldn't quite tell if she was dynamic in the way that Mary Bernadette was dynamic, or dynamic in another, less—well, less annoying way.

Alexis pulled into her parking space and checked her cell phone. She had been gone from the office for almost forty minutes. If the dynamic Mary Bernadette had stopped by and found her gone, there would be hell to pay. Alexis got out of her car and hurried inside.

P
J was behind the wheel of his grandparents' car. Mary Bernadette sat in front with him, and Alexis and Paddy sat in back. It was a beautiful night, not a cloud to dim a sky twinkling with stars. Ordinarily, Mary Bernadette didn't wax poetic about the weather, but this was a special evening after all, and she couldn't help but consider the clear skies and pleasantly balmy air a sign of good things to come to Oliver's Well.

“Every time I see Norma's place I'm impressed,” PJ said as he pulled the car up behind a guest's minivan. “I'm dying to get the landscaping contract. The gardens are the only thing subpar about the estate.”

“I don't know what a woman living alone needs with all this house,” Mary Bernadette replied. “And I do agree that her gardens could use a more professional finish.”

“Look,” Alexis said. “Over there. A media van. Who asked for a TV crew?”

Mary Bernadette smoothed an invisible wrinkle on her dress and straightened her already straight shoulders. “I don't know,” she admitted, “but I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Meadows is responsible.”

Norma Campbell had hired a staff of parking attendants, and PJ surrendered the keys to one of the white-shirted young men who were scurrying to and from the field behind the house that was serving as a parking lot. Mary Bernadette was of two minds about this. On one hand, she considered hired parking attendants an unnecessary expense. On the other, she admitted that it did probably cut down on confusion when people wanted to leave at the end of the night. And there
was
the matter of women's heels getting dirtied in that field, what with the horses and those large hairy dogs Norma was known to keep.

Mary Bernadette looked up at the façade of the house, complete with a rather grand staircase leading up to a rather grand porch with whitewashed columns. Right out of
Gone with the Wind
, Mary Bernadette thought. How theatrical, considering the house had been built only in the 1950s. Certainly not a candidate for the Historical Register.

The four Fitzgibbons made their way into the house. The ceiling of the front hall had to be almost twenty feet high. There was a suitably sweeping staircase. Massive urns held massive arrangements of flowers. The floor was marble. Mary Bernadette peered into a room off the hall. It was dense with detailed moldings and heavy draperies.

“It's a gorgeous house, isn't it?” Alexis said.

Mary Bernadette frowned. “I find it too grandiose, myself. And the décor is too ostentatious for my taste. Can you imagine the expense of keeping all those intricate carvings and silk draperies clean? But if it's what suits Norma . . .”

The four of them went through to the ballroom, Mary Bernadette leading the way with an air of deliberate nonchalance. It would never do to give Norma—or Wynston Meadows, for that matter—the erroneous idea that she was impressed by a display of mere
things
.

“I don't think I've ever been in a room this big,” Paddy whispered. “Outside of a museum, that is.”

“It's probably shut up for all but one day of the year,” Mary Bernadette said dismissively.
Conspicuous consumption,
she thought.
Money is the root of all evil. And Greed is yet another of the Seven Deadly Sins
.

Three large, ornate chandeliers, sparkling with drops of faceted crystal, hung in a row down the center of the room. Tall, rectangular windows were evenly spaced along the right-hand wall. Along the left-hand wall was a series of enormous landscape paintings in a distinctly nineteenth-century style, each in an elaborate gilt frame. Mary Bernadette wondered if the paintings were copies or originals. Not that it mattered.

Waiters dressed in white shirts and black pants wove their way through the gathering guests with trays of appetizers and glasses of champagne. A very long table of more substantial fare sat beside an equally long table of desserts, featuring everything from cakes to tartlets, from fresh fruit to an ornate chocolate fountain. There was also a full bar. “Norma is running a risk serving so much alcohol,” Mary Bernadette proclaimed.

Alexis laughed. “I don't think this is a crowd likely to get rowdy!”

“You never know,” Mary Bernadette replied darkly. “I've known the drink to fell even the most upright man.”

Alexis shrugged. Mary Bernadette resisted the urge to reprimand her. A shrug, in her opinion, was a gesture of disrespect. Her grandson's wife might as well have said, “Whatever,” in that obnoxious tone people employed when using the word dismissively. But this was supposed to be a festive occasion, so Mary Bernadette let the slight go without comment.

A live band, its members wearing classic tuxedos, was playing selections from the American Songbook. “I must say the music is tasteful,” Mary Bernadette noted.

Paddy nodded. “The woman doesn't stint, I'll say that for her. Look at the size of those shrimp!”

“I'll be back in a minute,” PJ said, already moving off. “I want a word with Leonard.”

“There's Mayor Rogers.” Mary Bernadette frowned. “What in the world is his wife wearing? Sheila has more money than God and yet absolutely no taste in clothing.”

“I didn't know there was so much wealth in Oliver's Well,” Alexis said.

“It's here and there, some old some new,” Paddy explained. “Norma's one of the more recent imports. When did she come here, Mary? Ten, twelve years ago?”

“Eleven years and three months ago, to be precise.” She had a phenomenal memory for names and dates concerned in any way with Oliver's Well. Besides, Norma's arrival was not something she was likely to forget. It wasn't every day that a middle-aged woman with no discernable familial attachments and no employment set up house down the road.

“And there she is now,” Alexis said. Norma, bedecked in a bronze lamé gown more suitable for a Met gala than a welcoming reception, got up on a platform at the far end of the room, and when the crowd went silent she introduced the guest of honor.

“Thank you,” she said, “for coming here tonight on this very special occasion. I'm pleased to see the cream of the crop of Oliver's Well in my home.”

“She speaks well enough,” Paddy commented.

Mary Bernadette shook her head. “Her enunciation needs work.”

“And now,” Norma went on, “without further delay, I would like to introduce our guest of honor, a man many of you know about but, at the same time, a newcomer to our little town and to the Oliver's Well Historical Association, Wynston Meadows. Mr. Meadows grew up in nearby Smithstown, where he was steeped in the tradition of our rich regional architectural and cultural history. He serves on the boards of no fewer than three major companies and holds a position on the D.C. Landmarks Commission. We are excited and honored to welcome Wynston Meadows to our fold. Mr. Meadows?”

With reporters hovering and television crews filming, Wynston Meadows took the stage. He was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and red tie. He put his hand up to request the applause to stop, and when it did, he spoke. Mary Bernadette listened attentively.

“Thank you, Norma, for that lovely introduction, and thank you all for coming this evening to welcome me to Oliver's Well.”

Sporadic applause broke out, and again Wynston Meadows raised his hand.

“I'm delighted to have been accepted to the board of the Oliver's Well Historical Association,” he went on. “As Norma mentioned, I have a very personal and long-standing connection with the historic lands and buildings of this region. My grandfather, Dennis Meadows, was the curator of the Smithstown historical society's museum. I passed many a pleasant hour with him, both in the museum and on visits to historic sites in our region, and so became passionate about the need to honor, protect, and preserve our heritage in these assets. I've been fortunate in business”—he paused for the expected chuckles—“so with the resources given to me I am happy to support the OWHA and other organizations committed to similar goals.”

Wynston Meadows paused again and looked thoughtfully at the floor.

“Isn't he wonderful?” Mary Bernadette turned to find that Jeannette and Danny had joined them.

“He is indeed,” Mary Bernadette whispered back.

“Tonight,” Meadows went on, “I would like to announce that I will be working with the OWHA to explore the possibility of acquiring and restoring the famous Branley Estate.” This was met with a general murmur of satisfaction. “To this end, I am pledging a total gift of twenty-five million dollars to the OWHA.”

This time, the applause went on without Wynston Meadows attempting to stop it. Mary Bernadette's palms stung with the force of her own clapping. When it had finally died down of its own accord, Wynston Meadows continued.

“This gift,” he said, “will be made in five installments of five million dollars over the next five years, with the first installment available immediately toward the acquisition of the property that the incomparable Mary Bernadette Fitzgibbon and her colleagues have worked so hard to position us to purchase.”

Again, the room resounded with applause. Mary Bernadette was brimming with pride. Jeannette squeezed her friend's arm in her excitement, and Paddy, beaming, cleared his throat.

Wynston Meadows again held up a hand to quiet the crowd. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you all. I'm happy to be able to make this contribution to my new hometown, and I hope the addition of my energy and experience to the management of the OWHA will help guide us along the new path ahead. Now, I'll let everyone get back to enjoying Norma's wonderful hospitality.”

Wynston Meadows left the platform to more thunderous applause.

“I think he did a very nice job,” Mary Bernadette noted to her companions when the applause had finally come to an end and the crowd began to move off around the room. She was determined to act as if the gift of a vast sum of money to her beloved organization was not something out of the ordinary. Keep a calm head and a placid demeanor, her mother had often said. And no one will be the wiser.

Alexis smiled vaguely. Jeannette wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. Danny patted her shoulder.

“It was good of him to mention you specifically, Mary,” Paddy said to his wife.

Mary Bernadette laughed. “Well, why wouldn't he have?”

“I just hope things at the OWHA don't change too drastically.”

“What do you mean?” Jeannette asked.

“A new man will have new ideas. It's only natural.”

“Nonsense,” Mary Bernadette said. “A smart man knows to leave well enough alone.”

“I hope so,” her husband murmured. “But a new broom sweeps clean.”