The Development (15 page)

"Don't miss Peggy Ashton's tuna spread, Rob; I'm going for another white wine spritzer."

"Make that two, okay? But no spritz in mine, please. So, Lisa: What were you starting to say about the nametags?"

"Oh, just that looking around at tonight's tags reminded me that friends of ours over in Oyster Cove told us once that nine out of ten husbands in Heron Bay Estates are called by one-syllable first names and their wives by two-syllable ones: You Rob-and-Shirley, we Dave-and-Lisa, et cetera."

"Hey, that's right. I hadn't noticed!"

"And what exactly does one make of that sociocultural infobit,
s'il vous plait?
"

"I'll let you know, Pete-and-Debbie, soon's I figure it out.
Meanwhile
..."

"What
I
notice, guys—every time I'm in the supermarket or Wal-Mart?—is that more and more older and overweight Americans—"

"Like us?"

"Like some of us, anyhow—go prowling down the aisles bent forward like
this,
with arms and upper body resting on their shopping cart as if it was some kind of a walker ..."

"And their fat butts waggling, often in pink warmup pants ..."

"Now is that nice to say?"

"It's what Pete calls the American Consumer Crouch.
I
say 'Whatever floats your boat ...'"

"
And
keeps the economy perking along. Am I right, Joe Barnes?"

"Right you are, Jeff."

"So, Deb,
you
were saying something earlier about a long letter that Pete got out of the blue from some girl in Uganda?"

"Oh, right, wow:
that
..."

"Uganda?"

"I should let Pete tell you about it. Where are you and Paul doing your entrée?"

"Practically next door. At the Beckers'?"

"Us too. So he'll explain it there. Very touching—but who knows whether it's for real or a scam? Oh, hey, Pat: Have you and Tom met the Barneses? Joe and Judy Barnes, Tom and Patsy Hardison from Loblolly Court."

"Jeff Pitt introduced us already, Deb. Hello again, Barneses."

"Hi there. We've been hearing great things about your Toga Party last fall! Sounds cool!"

"All but the ending, huh? We can't
imagine
what happened with Dick and Susan Felton that night ..."

"Has to've been some kind of freak accident; let's don't spoil this party with that one. Welcome to Rockfish Reach!"

"Joe and I love it already. And your place on Loblolly Court is just incredible!"

"Jeff pointed it out to us when we first toured the neighborhood. Really magnificent!"

"Thanks for saying so. An eyesore, some folks think, but it's what we wanted, so we built it. You're the new boss at Lucas and Jones, in town?"

"I am—and
my
boss, over in Baltimore, is the guy who stepped on lots of folks' toes with that teardown over in Spartina Pointe. Maybe you know him: Mark Matthews?"

"Oh, we know Mark, all right. A man after my own heart."

"Mine too, Tom. Decide what you want, go for it, and let the chips fall where they may."

"Well, now, people: Excuse me for butting in, but to us lonely left-wing-Democrat dentist types, that sounds a lot like our current president and his gang."

"Whoa-ho, Doctor David! Let's not go there, okay? This is Lisa Bergman's husband Dave, guys. He pulls teeth for a living."

"And steps on toes for fun. Pleased to meet you, folks."

"Entrée time in twenty minutes, everybody! Grab yourselves another sip and nibble, check your tags for your sit-down-dinner address, and we'll all reconvene for dessert with the Greens at nine!"

"So, that Barnes couple: Are they golfers, d'you know?"

The assembled now disperse from the Simpsons' to shift their automobiles or stroll on foot to their various main-course addresses, their four host-couples having left a bit earlier to confirm that all is ready and to be in place to greet their guests. Of these latter, four will dine with George and Carol Walsh on Shoreside Drive; six (including the newcomer Barneses) with Jeff and Marsha Pitt, also on Shoreside; eight (the Ashtons, Bergmans, Greens, and Simpsons) with Pete and Debbie's Cattail Court near-neighbors Charles and Sandy Becker; and ten with Tom and Patsy Hardison over on Loblolly Court. Stratford Catering's entrée menu for the evening is simple but well prepared: a caesar salad with optional anchovies, followed by Maryland crabcakes with garlic mashed potatoes and a steamed broccoli-zucchini mix, the vegetables cooked in advance and reheated, the crabcakes prepared in advance but griddled on-site, three minutes on each side, and the whole accompanied by mineral water and one's choice of pinot grigio or iced tea.

The Becker group all go on foot, chatting together as they pass under the streetlights in the mild evening air, their destination being just two houses down from the Simpsons' on the opposite side of the cul-de-sac "court." To no one in particular, Shirley Green remarks, "Somebody was wondering earlier whether the Barneses got a bargain price on the Feltons' house? None of our business, but
I
can't help wondering whether the Beckers' house number affects
their
property value."

"Aiyi," Peggy Ashton exclaims in mock dismay. "
Nine-Eleven
Cattail Court! I hadn't thought of that!"

If
he
were Chuck Becker, Rob Green declares to the group, he'd use that unfortunate coincidence to appeal their property-tax assessment. "I mean, hell, Dick and Susan Felton were just two people, rest their souls. Whereas, what was it, three
thousand
and some died on Nine-Eleven? That ought to count for something."

His wife punches his shoulder. "Rob, I
swear!
"

Walking backward to face the group, he turns up his palms: "Can't help it, folks. We accountants try to take everything into account."

Hisses and groans. Peter Simpson takes his wife's hand as they approach their destination. He's relieved that the Barneses, although certainly pleasant-seeming people, won't be at table with them for the sit-down dinner to distress Debbie further with innocent talk of their college-age daughters.

The Beckers' house, while no
palazzo
like the Hardisons, is an imposing two-story white-brick colonial, it's columned central portico flanked by a guest wing on one side and a garage wing on the other, with two large doors for cars and a smaller one for golf cart and bicycles. The eight guests make their way up the softly lighted entrance drive to the brightly lit main entry to be greeted by ruddy-hefty, bald-pated, silver-fringed Charles Becker, a politically conservative septuagenarian with the self-assured forcefulness of the CEO he once was, and his no-longer-sandy-haired Sandy, less vigorous of aspect after last year's successful surgery for a "growth" on her left lung, but still active in the Neighborhood Association, her Episcopal church in Stratford, and the Heron Bay Club. Once all have been welcomed and seated in the Beckers' high-ceilinged dining room, the drinks poured, and the salad served, their host taps his water glass with a table knife for attention and says, "Let's take hands and bow our heads for the blessing, please."

The Simpsons, seated side by side at his right hand, glance at each other uncomfortably, they being nonbelievers, and at the Bergmans, looking equally discomfited across the table from them. More for their sake than for her own, Debbie asks, as if teasingly, "Whatever happened to the separation of church and dinner party?" To which Charles Becker replies smoothly, "In a Christian household, do as the Christians do," and takes her left hand in his right and Lisa Bergman's right in his left. David shrugs his eyebrows at Pete and goes along with it, joining hands with his wife on one side and with Shirley Green on the other. Peter follows suit, taking Debbie's right hand in his left and Peggy Ashton's left in his right; but the foursome neither close eyes nor lower heads with the others while their host intones: "Be present at our table, Lord. / Be here and everywhere adored. / These mercies bless, and grant that we / May feast in Paradise with Thee. Amen."

"
And,
" Paul Ashton adds at once to lighten the little tension at the table, "grant us stomach-room enough for this entrée after all those appetizers!"

"Amen and
bon appétit,
" proposes Sandy Becker, raising her wineglass. "Everybody dig in, and then I'll do the crabcakes while Chuck serves up the veggies."

"Such appetizers they were!" Lisa Bergman marvels, and then asks Paul whether he happens, like her, to be a Gemini. He is, in fact, he replies: "Got a birthday coming up next week. Why?"

"Because," Lisa declares, "it's a well-known fact that we Geminis prefer hors d'oeuvres to entrées. No offense intended, Sandy and Chuck!"

Her husband winks broadly. "It's true even in bed, so I've heard—no offense intended, Paul and Lisa."

Sipping their drinks and exchanging further such teases and pleasantries, all hands duly address the caesar salad, the passed-around optional anchovy fillets, and the pre-sliced baguettes. Although tempted to pursue what she regards as presumption on their host's part that everyone in their community is a practicing Christian, or that because the majority happen to be, any others should join in uncomplainingly, Debbie Simpson holds her tongue—as she did not when, for example, the Neighborhood Association proposed Christmas lights last winter on the entrance signs to Rockfish Reach (she won that one, readily granting the right of all residents to decorate their houses, but not community property, with whatever religious symbols they cared to display), and when the Heron Bay Estates Community Association put up it's large Christmas tree at the development's main gatehouse (that one she lost, and at Pete's request didn't pursue it, they being new residents whom he would prefer not be branded as troublemakers). She gives his left hand a squeeze by way of assuring him that she's letting the table-grace issue drop.

"So tell us about that strange letter you got, Pete," Peggy Ashton proposes. "From Uganda, was it? That Deb mentioned during appetizers?"

"Uganda?" the hostess marvels, or anyhow asks.

"
Very
strange," Peter obligingly tells the table. "I suppose we've all gotten crank letters now and then—get-rich scams in Liberia and like that?—but this one was really different." To begin with, he explains, it wasn't a photocopied typescript like the usual mass-mailed scam letter, but a neatly handwritten appeal on two sides of a legal-size ruled sheet, with occasional cross-outs and misspellings. Polite, articulate, and addressed to "Dear Friend," it was or purported to be from a seventeen-year-old Ugandan girl, the eldest of five children, whose mother had died in childbirth and whose father had succumbed to AIDS. Since their parents' death, the siblings have been lodged with an uncle, also suffering from AIDS and with five children of his own. Those he dresses properly and sends to school, the letter writer declares, but she and her four brothers and sisters are treated harshly by him and his wife, who "don't recognize [them] as human beings." Dismissed from school for lack of fee money and provided with "only two clothes each" to wear and little or nothing to eat, they are made to graze the family's goats, feed the pigs, and do all the hard and dirty housework from morning till night. In a few months, when she turns eighteen, she'll be obliged to become one of some man's several wives, a fate she fears both because of the AIDS epidemic and because it will leave her siblings unprotected. Having (unlike them) completed her secondary education before their father's death, she appeals to her "dear Friend" to help her raise 1,500 euros to "join university for a degree in education" and 1,200 euros for her siblings to finish high school. Attached to the letter was a printed deposit slip from Barclays Bank of Uganda, complete with the letter writer's name and account number, followed by the stipulation "
F/O CHILDREN
."

"How she got
my
name and address, I can't imagine," Pete concludes to the hushed and attentive table. "If it was in some big general directory or academic Who's Who, how'd she get hold of it, and how many hundreds of these things did she write out by hand and mail?"

"And where'd she get paper and envelopes and deposit slips and postage stamps," Lisa Bergman wonders, "if they're so dirt poor?"

"And the time to scribble scribble scribble," Paul Ashton adds, "while they're managing the goats and pigs and doing all the scut-work?"

Opines Rob the Accountant, "It doesn't add up."

"It does seem questionable," Sandy Becker agrees.

"But if you could see the letter!" Debbie protests. "So earnest and articulate, but so unslick! Lines like 'We do not hope that our uncle will recover.' And 'I can't leave my siblings alone. We remained five and we should stick five.'"

Taking her hand in his again and using his free hand to make finger quotes, Pete adds, "And, quote, 'Life unbearable, we only pray hard to kind people to help us go back to school, because the most learnt here is more chance of getting good job,' end of quote."

"It's heartbreaking," Shirley Green acknowledges. "No wonder you-all have so much of it memorized!"

"But the bottom line is," Chuck Becker declares, "did you fall for it? Because, believe me, it's a goddamn scam."

"You really think so?" Dave Bergman asks.