“Yes, well, the past is something we can’t change, even if we’d like to.”
That surprised Vic. Conrad didn’t strike him as someone who was particularly introspective, let alone regretful. He wondered if Mimi’s father was referring to something in particular.
He didn’t know much about the family except what he’d heard as an undergraduate. You couldn’t live in Grantham without realizing that the Lodges were very Very Important People. And as for Mimi, she’d run with a different crowd—the preppy jocks who knew all about lacrosse, and what brand of gin was best for martinis.
He knew she had become a hotshot war correspondent on the nightly news—her dream fulfilled, if he remembered correctly—who’d been kidnapped while on assignment in some ex-Soviet region and finally released. He wondered if the family had maneuvered that one the way they used to have the Grantham police in the palm of their hands. They obviously had connections everywhere. Whatever, he really didn’t care. If a family member of his had been kidnapped, he would have used every possible means to free them also.
“On the other hand,” Conrad went on, “perhaps what I am proposing is a way to redress past wrongs. You see, as it turns out, I am the chair of panel discussions for the Reunions in June.”
“Tell me you’re not proposing what I think you’re proposing?”
“I think the possibility to revisit problems of equality in college sports is as timely now as ever. And since all the panelists have agreed to participate again, it will be interesting to see if any of their perspectives have changed.”
“All the panelists?” Forget the others. Vic was only interested in one.
Lodge cleared his throat. “Yes, though, it is true that my daughter agreed to participate only if you served on the panel, as well.”
Vic tipped his chair back again. “She did? I’m surprised she even remembered me.”
“Interesting, she said the same thing about you.” Lodge didn’t elaborate. “In any case, I think the audience would be fascinated by your perspective as a former professional athlete. And no doubt more than a few of them will recall your courage all those years ago to take what might have been considered a refreshingly candid, though politically incorrect stance.”
“If I didn’t know better, I would say you’re itching for a replay. Is your daughter still so easily riled?”
“That remains to be seen. Even if there are no fireworks, the anticipation that something might happen would be worth the price of admission alone, don’t you think?”
Vic didn’t know what to think. He glanced down at Roxie, who sighed a dog sigh. He hadn’t wanted to wait until after the weekend, and the vet’s office closed early on Fridays, so he’d had no choice but to collect her first thing in the morning. Now, he just wanted to get her home and comfortable. And wait for the prognosis.
Yet the businessman in him also wouldn’t let go. Besides, the economy in Australia might be booming, but big commercial jobs in general were still few and far between. “At the same time you’d keep GSI in mind in regards to the construction of your Australian offices?” he asked.
“As two seasoned men of the world, I think we both understand the certain quid pro quo that is a part of doing business,” Conrad replied. “You have my word that we will view your company’s participation in a very favorable light.”
Mimi Lodge.
Just the thought of her was like a craw in his side—an irritating feeling that just wouldn’t go away. Like nothing and no one else he’d ever come in contact with. What was it Machiavelli had said? Keep your friends close but your enemies closer?
Well, Mimi Lodge wasn’t so much an enemy as a troublemaker with a capital “T.” All the Lodges were, he reminded himself, even the man on the other end of the phone line.
But Mimi Lodge was also the only woman who had ever aroused his passions so fully, so surprisingly. She’d blindsided him, that’s what she’d done.
And now he wondered what would happen if they met again.
“So do I have your agreement, then?” Conrad prodded him. “It would mean a great deal to me.”
If Lodge were at all the type of person to be sincere, Vic would have assumed that the older man genuinely meant it. He watched as Roxie licked the top of a front paw, sure evidence that she was in pain. Nope, he couldn’t hang around the office any longer. “Just send me the details, and I’ll be there,” he said decisively.
They exchanged a few more cursory comments, Vic wrote down the information, and then the call ended. He swiveled around and faced Joe.
“So, did we get it?” Joe sprung from the couch.
Vic ripped off a sheet of paper and rose. He circled his desk and handed it to Joe. Then he stepped over to the coat rack and shrugged on his blazer. The action rekindled memories of the exact opposite where Mimi Lodge was concerned.
Joe frowned at the paper. “If I can navigate your handwriting, this is a contact at Pilgrim?”
Vic reached for the top button of his jacket, then decided to leave it open. Easier for driving. “It’s the person you can contact in regards to our bid for their new building.”
Joe whistled. “So how did you do it? I gather there’s a Grantham connection?”
“Yes, it seems that my agreement to serve on an alumni panel at Reunions this coming June sealed the deal—or at least the bid.” He reached for his winter jacket and turned back to his brother.
Joe looked incredulous. “Wait a minute. That hothead? The one who dumped water on you your senior year? Wasn’t her name Lodge, too?”
Vic pulled out Roxie’s lead from the pocket of his coat. “Mimi Lodge. His daughter. Conrad seemed particularly interested that we recreate our little tango.”
Joe shook his head. “I don’t get it. It sounds suspiciously like the old man is pimping for his daughter. Which is pretty creepy, even for someone like me.”
“I don’t think your sensibilities had anything to do with the offer, and I’m not convinced it really has anything to do with me, either.” Vic walked over to Roxie and kneeled down to hook the lead to her collar. Then he stood up and Roxie awkwardly followed suit. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say the motivating factor was guilt.”
The question is whose?
Vic silently ruminated.
CHAPTER FOUR
June, the Wednesday before Grantham University Reunions…
“YOU DIDN’T NEED TO PICK me up, you know. I could have taken the Link into town and then walked,” Mimi announced. The Link was the single-car commuter train that connected Grantham to the mainline at Grantham Junction. That’s where she was now—standing, on the southbound platform at Grantham Junction, having just disembarked from the express train from New York. It had been standing room only when she’d gotten on at Penn Station, and she’d only managed to secure a seat when she outmaneuvered a teenager with two Bergdorf Goodman bags and a Louis Vuitton purse. What was the world coming to anyway?
Her half-brother, Press, took her rolling suitcase from her without bothering to ask. “I’d already emailed you that I’d be back for Reunions, and the timing worked out. Besides, admit it—you would have given me grief if I hadn’t made the effort.” A year after graduating from Grantham, Press was living in Melbourne, Australia, where he was getting a master’s degree in paleontology. He’d traveled halfway around the world to work with a scientist who was on the forefront of 3-D imaging of bone specimens.
Mimi looked him over. He seemed the same—maybe skinnier and now sporting a fashionably scraggly beard that was a darker blond than his short curls. He wore jeans and a T-shirt—a Hoagie Palace T-shirt. The T-shirt had her thinking. “How about we stop off for some hoagies—my treat. Unless you have other plans, of course?”
Someone bumped Mimi from the back. She tensed.
Damn.
She’d been doing better these past two months. She willed herself to breathe out slowly and recognize the bump as just a commuter in a rush. Much as she didn’t go in for the touchy-feely stuff, seeing the psychologist recommended by Noreen had helped. Treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder had greatly improved over the years. For Mimi, the sessions had helped her identify frightening memories and replace them with more manageable thoughts. That still didn’t mean she was “cured.”
Again, she felt pressure on her upper arm, and while she steeled herself, at least she didn’t flinch. She glanced to see what it was and saw it was Press touching the sleeve of her leather jacket.
“Sorry, I guess I’m jumpy. Must be the excitement of returning to the old stomping grounds,” she joked lamely. She peered into her brother’s eyes to see if he’d discerned something more, but his gray-blue eyes looked more bloodshot than anything, and his face didn’t show a reaction one way or the other. But then Press had always been good at appearing unemotional under the best of circumstances—or the worst. That was his way of coping, she realized. Hers was to rant and rave and run away.
“So food?” she asked again. Today she wasn’t planning on running—at least, not yet.
“I’m always up for Hoagie Palace. Besides I need to stop in to say hi to Angie and Sal. If they knew I was in town and hadn’t seen them, I’d be in a lot of trouble.” Angie and Sal were the owners of the popular Grantham establishment and had probably been more involved with raising Press than his own parents had been.
He pointed out his car in the parking lot, and they marched down the platform to the stairs. Instead of bouncing her suitcase down the cement risers, he simply picked it up by the handle and carried it down.
“So, how are things in Australia?”
Press fished the car keys out of his pocket and beeped open the doors to the aging BMW. “Good, I guess. I mean, the work is great and my advisor is, too. Now that we’ve got the bugs worked out of the new 3-D equipment—it cost a bomb, I’ll tell you—the measurements I’m getting on the specimens are amazing. Which is a good thing, because I just heard that my proposal for a talk at the big paleontology meeting in September was accepted.”
“That’s fantastic. But what about outside of work? Don’t you like Australia?” Mimi had gone scuba diving in the Barrier Reef after successfully completing a story. And she’d downed more than a few beers with a crew from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in the Rocks section of Sydney. Beyond that, the vast Red Continent was a mystery to her—one of those places she was always telling herself that she needed to explore. The thing was, she never seemed to have time for a vacation.
Press hoisted her suitcase into the trunk and came around to open the passenger door. “No, Australia’s great. Just more different than I anticipated. I don’t know why. Maybe because we speak the same language—or kind of the same language—I expected things to function the same way as in the U.S. My mistake.” He held open the door.
Mimi hesitated.
You’re thinking of being pushed into the car in Grozny, but this is your brother and Grantham,
she reminded herself. She willed herself to get in and fasten her seat belt. But she kept a death grip on the door handle. Then she forced herself to talk. “It’s not easy, I know, to uproot yourself and live in another country. Everyone thinks it’s so glamorous and exciting, but sometimes it’s just plain lonely. I remember my mother complaining about it.” She looked out the window as they negotiated the traffic out of the crowded parking lot.
“You know, that may be the first time you’ve ever mentioned your mother to me.” Press tapped his thumbs impatiently on the steering wheel.
“I guess that’s true. It just kind of came up.” Mimi looked out the window. The maple and ash trees were thick with leaves. Every time she came back to this part of central New Jersey, she was struck by how green it was, especially in June. “So do you have any roommates?” She turned back, changing the subject.
Press inched the car forward. “Nah, I decided to live alone after years of having roommates at boarding school and college.”
“Maybe that’s one reason why you’re lonely? That can’t be good if you’re trying to fit in.”
“Who said I was lonely? Anyway, you live alone.”
“That’s no recommendation.” Mimi bit her tongue. She hadn’t seen her brother since his graduation last year, and she didn’t want to fight. “So what brings you back to our fair shores now? Don’t think I’m buying your explanation about the siren call of Reunions. You were always as blasé as I was about the whole rah-rah thing.”
He breathed in noisily.
Mimi recognized New Jersey allergies.
“I don’t know,” Press said nonchalantly. “It’s been a year. I figured it was time to take a break. See some people.”
“People?”
“Sure, there’s Matt Brown. We met a ways back when we both worked at Apple Farm Country Club. You remember him, right? He graduated from Yale this year and is home in Grantham for a while.”
Mimi nodded. “I remember him—the kid who interned for Lilah with her organization in Congo. What’s he up to?” Lilah Evans was her old roommate.
“I’m not totally sure. From his Facebook page it looks like he’s going into the Peace Corps, then grad school. I thought I’d get more details, just hang out, you know?”