Authors: Rita Mae Brown
“Ha!”
Tucker snorted.
“You do like him though.” Miranda stuck to her guns.
“Okay, okay, so I like him. Why is it that a single person is an affront to everyone in Crozet? Just because I like my neighbor doesn’t mean I want to go out with him, doesn’t mean I want to go to bed with him, and doesn’t mean I want to marry him. Everyone’s got the cart before the horse. I actually like living alone. I don’t have to pick up Fair’s clothes, I don’t have to wash and iron them, and I don’t have to worry about what to make for supper. I don’t have to pick up the phone at seven and hear that he’s got a foaling mare in trouble and he won’t be home. And I suspect some of those mares were BoomBoom Craycroft. My nightmare. I am not taking care of another man.”
“Now, now, marriage is a fifty-fifty proposition.”
“Oh, balls, Miranda. You show me any marriage in this town and I’ll show you the wives doing seventy-five percent of the work, both physical and emotional. Hell, half of the men around here don’t even mow their lawns. Their wives do it.”
The grain of truth in this outburst caused Miranda to think it over. Once she took a position it was quite difficult for her to reverse it—modify it perhaps, but not reverse. “Well, dear, don’t you think that the men are exhausted from their work?”
“Who’s rich enough to keep a wife that doesn’t work? The women are exhausted too. I’d come home and the housework would land in my lap. He wouldn’t do it, and I think I worked pretty damn hard myself.”
Little Marilyn came in. “Are you two having a fight?”
“No!” Harry yelled at her.
“Christmas.” Miranda smiled as if to explain the tension.
“Take Valium. That’s what Mother does. Her shopping list contains close to three hundred names. You can imagine what a tizz she’s in. Can’t say that I enjoy this either. But you know we have a position to maintain, and we can’t let down the little people.”
That toasted Harry, pushed her right over the edge. “Well, Marilyn, allow me to relieve you and your mother of one little person!” Harry walked out the back door and slammed it hard.
“She never has liked me, even when we were children.” Little Marilyn pouted.
Miranda, inviolate in her social position, spoke directly. “Marilyn, you don’t make it easy.”
“And what do you mean by that?”
“You’ve got your nose so far up in the air that if it rains, you’ll drown. Stop imitating your mother and be yourself. Yes, be yourself. It’s the one thing you can do better than anyone else. You’ll be a lot happier and so will everyone around you.”
This bracing breeze of honesty so stunned the younger woman that she blinked but didn’t move. Mrs. Murphy, hanging out of the mail bin, observed the stricken Little Marilyn.
“Tucker, go on around the counter. Little Marilyn’s either going to faint or pitch a hissy.”
Tucker eagerly snuck around the door, her claws clicking on the wooden floorboards.
Little Marilyn caught her breath. “Mrs. Hogendobber, you have no right to speak to me like that.”
“I have every right. I’m one of the few people who sees beneath your veneer and I’m one of the few people who actually likes you despite all.”
“If this is your idea of friendship I find it most peculiar.” The color returned to Little Marilyn’s narrow face.
“Child, go home and think about it. Who tells you the truth? Who would you call at three in the morning if you were feeling low? Your mother? I think not. Are you doing anything with your life that makes you truly happy? How many bracelets and necklaces and cars can you buy? Do they make you happy? You know, Marilyn, life is like an aircraft carrier. If there’s a mistake in navigation, it takes one mile just to turn the ship around.”
“I am not an aircraft carrier.” Little Marilyn recovered enough to turn and leave.
Miranda slapped letters on the counter. “It’s going to be that kind of day.” She said this to the cat and dog, then realized who she was talking to and shook her head. “What am I doing?”
“Having an intelligent conversation,”
Mrs. Murphy purred.
Harry sheepishly opened the back door. “Sorry.”
“I know.” Miranda opened another sack of mail.
“I hate Christmas.”
“Oh, don’t let work get to you.”
“It isn’t just that. I can’t wipe the murders out of my mind and I suppose I am more upset than I realized about Blair taking BoomBoom to that stupid ball. But why would he ask me? I can’t afford to travel to New York and I don’t have anything to wear. I’m not an impressive specimen on a man’s arm. Still . . .” Her voice trailed off. “And I can’t believe Fair can be taken in by that woman.” She paused. “And I miss Mom and Dad the most at Christmas.”
Tucker sat beside Harry’s feet and Mrs. Murphy walked over to her too.
Miranda understood. She, too, lived with her losses. “I’m sorry, Harry. Because you’re young I sometimes think that everything’s wonderful. But I know what it’s like to hear the carols and wish those old familiar voices were singing with us. Nothing is ever quite the same again.” She went over and patted Harry on the back, for Mrs. Hogendobber wasn’t a physically demonstrative woman. “God never closes one door that he doesn’t open another. You try and remember that.”
43
Resplendent sashes swept across the men’s chests; medals dangled over hearts. Those in military dress caused the women to breathe harder. Such handsome men, such beautiful women laden with jewelry, the aggregate sum of which was more than the gross national product of Bolivia.
BoomBoom’s head spun. Blair, in white tie and tails, squired her around the dance floor, one of the best in America. What was Crozet compared to this? BoomBoom felt she had arrived. If she couldn’t turn Blair’s head, and he was attentive but not physically attracted to her—she could tell—she knew she’d snare someone else before the night surrendered to dawn.
A coral dress accentuated her dark coloring, the lowcut bodice calling attention to her glories. When she and Blair returned to their table after dancing, a college friend of his joined them. After the introductions, Orlando Heguay pulled up a chair.
“How’s life in the boonies?”
“Interesting.”
Orlando smiled at BoomBoom. “If this lovely lady is proof, I should say so.”
BoomBoom smiled back. Her teeth glistened; she’d had them cleaned the day before. “You flatter me.”
“Quite the contrary. My vocabulary fails me.”
Blair smiled indulgently. “Come visit for New Year’s. I might even have furniture by then.”
“Blair, that’s a deal.”
“Orlando, refresh my memory. Were you at Exeter or Andover?”
“Andover. Carlos was Exeter. Mother and Dad thought we should go to separate schools, since we were so competitive. And now we’re in business together. I suppose they were right.”
“And what is your business, Mr. Heguay?”
“Oh, please call me Orlando.” He smiled again. He was a fine-looking man. “Carlos and I own The Atlantic Company. We provide architects and interior designers to various clients, many of whom reside in South America as well as North America. I was the original architect and Carlos was the original interior designer, but now we have a team of fifteen employees.”
“You sound as though you love it,” BoomBoom cooed.
“I do.”
Blair, amused by BoomBoom’s obvious interest—an interest reflected by Orlando—asked, “Didn’t you go to school with Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton?”
“Year behind me. Poor guy.”
“What do you mean?”
“His parents were killed in a small plane crash one summer. Then he and a buddy were in a car wreck. Messed them up pretty badly. I heard he’d had kind of a breakdown. People were surprised when he made it to Princeton in the fall, ’cause there’d been so much talk about him his senior year. People thought he was definitely on the skids.”
“He lives in Crozet, too . . . seems to be perfectly fine.”
“How about that. Remember Izzy Diamond?”
“I remember that he wanted to make Pen and Scroll so badly at Yale that I thought he’d die if he didn’t. Didn’t make it either.”
“Just got arrested for an investment scam.”
“Izzy Diamond?”
“Yes.” Orlando’s eyebrows darted upward, then he gazed at BoomBoom. “How rude of us to reminisce about college. Mademoiselle, may I have this dance?” He turned to Blair. “You’re going to have to find yourself another girl.”
Blair smiled and waved them off. He felt grateful to BoomBoom for easing his social passage into Central Virginia. In an odd way he liked her, although her need to be the center of attention bored him the more he was around her. Asking her to the Knickerbocker Ball was more of a payback than anything else. He couldn’t have been happier that Orlando found her tremendously attractive. Many of the men there cast admiring glances at BoomBoom. Blair was off women for a while, although he found himself thinking of Harry at the oddest times. He wondered what she’d do at a ball. Not that she’d be awkward but he couldn’t imagine her in a ball gown. Her natural element was boots, jeans, and a shirt. Given Harry’s small rear end, her natural element illuminated her physical charms. She was so practical, so down to earth. Suddenly Blair wished she were with him. Wouldn’t she find some funny things to say about this crowd?
44
“Who’ll start at fifteen thousand? Do I hear fifteen thousand? Now you can’t buy this new for under thirty-five. Who’ll bid fifteen thousand?”
As the auctioneer sang, insulted, joked, and carried on, Harry and Blair stood at the edge of the auction ground. A light rain dampened the attendance, and as temperatures were dropping, the rain could quite possibly turn to snow. People stamped their feet and rubbed their hands together. Even though she wore silk long johns, a T-shirt, a heavy sweater, and her down jacket, the cold nipped at Harry’s nose, hands, and feet. She could always keep her body warm but the extremities proved difficult.
Blair shifted from foot to foot. “Now you’re sure I need a seventy-horsepower tractor?”
“You can get along with forty-five or so, but if you have seventy you can do everything you’ll ever want to do. You want to turn up that back field of yours and fertilize it, right? You’ll want to bush-hog. You’ve got a lot to do at Foxden. I know that John Deere is old but it’s been well maintained and if you have a tiny bit of mechanical ability you can keep it humming.”
“Do I need a blade?”
“To scrape the driveway? You could get through the winter without one. It doesn’t usually snow much in Virginia. Let’s concentrate on the essentials.”
Life in the country was proving more complicated and expensive than Blair had imagined. Fortunately, he had resources, and fortunately, he had Harry. Otherwise he would have walked into a dealer and paid top dollar for a piece of new equipment, plus oodles of attachments he didn’t need immediately and might never even use.
The green and yellow John Deere tractor beckoned to more folks than Blair. Bidding was lively but he finally prevailed at twenty-two thousand five hundred, which was a whopping good buy. Harry did the bidding.
Harry, thrilled with his purchase, crawled up into the tractor, started her up, and chugged over in first gear to her gooseneck, a step-up. She’d brought along a wooden ramp, which weighed a ton. She kept the tractor running, put it in neutral, and locked the brake.
“Blair, this might take another man.”
He lifted one end. “How’d you get this thing on in the first place?”
“I keep it on the old hay wagon and when I need it I take it to the earthen ramp and then shove it off into the trailer, backed up to the ramp. I expand my vocabulary of abuse too.” She noticed Mr. Tapscott, who had purchased a dump truck. “Hey, Stuart, give me a hand.”
Mr. Tapscott ambled over, a tall man with gorgeous gray hair. “’Bout time you replenished your tractor, and you got the best deal today.”
“Blair bought it. I just did the bidding.” Harry introduced them.
Mr. Tapscott eyed Blair. As he liked Harry his eye was critical. He didn’t want any man hanging around who didn’t have some backbone.
“Harry showed me the roadwork you did out at Reverend Jones’. That was quite a job.”
“Enjoyed it.” Mr. Tapscott smiled. “Well, you feeling strong?”
To assist in this maneuver, Travis, Stuart’s son, joined in. The men easily positioned the heavy ramp, and Harry, in the driver’s seat, rolled the tractor into the gooseneck. Then the men slid the ramp into the trailer, leaning it against the tractor.
“Thank you, Mr. Tapscott.” Blair held out his hand.
“Glad to help the friend of a friend.” He smiled and wished them good day.
Once in her truck, Harry drove slowly because she wanted the ramp to bang up against the tractor only so much.
“I’m going to take this to my place, because we can drive the tractor straight off. Then you can help me slide off the wooden ramp. Wish they made an aluminum ramp that I could use, but no luck.”
“At the hunt meets I’ve seen trailers with ramps.”
“Sure, but those kinds of trailers cost so much—especially the aluminum ones, which are the best. My stock trailer is serviceable but nothing fancy like a ramp comes with it.”
She backed up to the earthen ramp. Took two tries. They could hear Tucker barking in the house. They rolled off the tractor, after which they pushed and pulled on the wooden ramp.
“Well, how are we going to get it off the bank?” Blair was puzzled, as the heavy wooden ramp was precariously perched on the earthen rampart.
“Watch.” Harry pulled the gooseneck away, hopped out of the truck, and unhitched it. Then she climbed back in the truck and backed it over to the old hay wagon. A chain hung from the wagon’s long shaft, a leftover from the days when it was drawn by horses. She dropped the chain over the ball hitch on her bumper. Harry wisely had both hitches on her trailer: the steel plate and ball bolted into the bed of her truck for the gooseneck and another hitch welded onto the frame under the bed of the truck, with its adjustable ball mount. Then she drove the hay wagon alongside the embankment.
“Okay, now we push the ramp onto the wagon.”
Blair, sweating now despite the temperature, pushed the heavy wooden ramp onto the beckoning platform. “Presto.”