Читать книгу Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody - Barbara Ross - Страница 13

Chapter Six

Dinner was indeed served at the tables, though the food itself was even less inspiring than lunch. The dull palate of skinless chicken; brown rice; and watery, overcooked broccoli looked nothing like the colorful photos on the website.

Paul made the rounds of the tables. He’d changed out of his water-soaked suit into another, complete with tie, which seemed an odd thing to wear so late in the day. It was as if he needed the suit to use as armor, to create the proper distance between him and the variously dressed, but definitely unsuited, residents.

The people of Walden Spring obviously liked Paul. Although they complained about the motorcycles and the water balloons, they also chatted with him easily about hobbies and grandchildren and made small requests about things like loose screens and squeaky doors. Jane thought he took a genuine interest in the residents, a strong sense of mission in his work of making Walden Spring a great place to live. Jane was glad she’d signed on to help him.

It was all very pleasant until he got to the artists’ table.

“Jeez, Paul, you gotta make this stop,” Maurice complained. “I was enjoying a lovely cocktail when those cycles started roaring. I coulda had a coronary.”

“I’m sorry. We’re working on it.” Paul looked so conspiratorially at Jane, she was worried the others would guess why she was there. But the conversation moved on.

When Paul left the clubhouse, Jane pushed her plate away and excused herself. She caught up with him in the quad.

“What’s the prognosis?” he asked as they strolled toward his office.

“I can see why you hired me.”

“Any ideas yet?”

“Yes,” Jane answered, “two. Why does Mike have a key to the game room? Why does it even have that kind of lock? The other doors in Walden Spring use a keycard.”

Paul stopped walking and considered. “There’s a lot of expensive equipment in there. Flat-screen TVs and gaming equipment. Mike came to me, we talked, and I agreed it was better to keep it locked when the room wasn’t in use. He wanted an old-fashioned lock, not a card reader, so I had one installed and gave him the key. He seemed like the logical person, since he uses the room so much.”

“You need to take the key away from Mike.” Jane said it firmly.

“Sure,” Paul agreed immediately. “But why?”

“Cliques thrive on territoriality and exclusivity.” They started walking again. “Mike’s taken over the game room as his group’s private domain. The other residents feel they can’t use it. By giving Mike the key, Walden Spring is officially sanctioning that behavior. You’re not just saying it’s okay, you’re enabling it. The message from you as executive director has to be that exclusive use of community property isn’t tolerated.”

“Okay. I get it. I’ll speak to him. You said you had two ideas.”

“At the same time, you have to take assigning tee times away from Bill Finnerty.”

“What! Why?” Paul stopped again.

“Same reason. Just as the game room doesn’t belong to Mike and his guys, the golf course doesn’t belong to Bill’s crew.”

“But you have to admit, both of the dustups you’ve seen—the food fight on your first visit and the water balloon fight tonight—were started by Mike.”

“The residents feel just as oppressed by Bill as they do by Mike.” Jane outlined the abuses of power she’d heard about—the bribe of cookies Bill had extracted from Evangeline and the man who hadn’t been able to get a tee time all summer.

“That’s terrible,” Paul agreed. “I wish people would come to me with this sort of thing. But maybe—just throwing out ideas here—maybe I should take the key from Mike and wait awhile, see if that helps, before I move on to Bill.”

Why was Paul so much more reluctant to confront Bill than Mike? On the surface, Mike was much more intimidating. “That’s exactly what you shouldn’t do,” Jane responded. “You’re not taking Bill’s side or Mike’s side. You’re laying out standards for the public space in the community and applying them equally.”

“Okay.” Paul sighed. “I’ll talk to them both tonight.”

* * *

“What have I gotten you into?” Irma wondered aloud after Jane described the water balloon fight.

“Don’t apologize.” Jane adjusted her cell phone, bringing it closer to her ear. “It’s been really interesting.”

“Have you figured it all out?”

“Some of it, I hope.”

Irma was the newcomer to the bridge group. Thirty-two years earlier, Helen proposed Irma as a replacement for a woman Jane barely remembered, who’d moved somewhere. Cleveland? Cincinnati? Columbus? Phyllis and Jane had been resistant, even suspicious. The three of them were young married mothers then. Irma was “other.” Older, unmarried. Jane’s great-aunt would have called her a “maiden lady.” And then there was Irma’s house. Sharing an apartment with her mother, renting out the lower floor, on the wrong side of Huron Avenue. Outside Harvard’s orbit.

Helen, who’d met Irma through Hugh’s work at Mount Auburn Hospital, had insisted. Irma loved bridge. Irma was a hoot. They needed a fourth. At least give her a try.

Now Jane was deeply embarrassed by her naïve snobbism. Were their lives really so insular back then? Products of the civil rights generation, they would have bristled at the idea of shunning someone who was of a different race or religion. But the smallest difference of class, of education, of neighborhood, had made her a coward. In the years since, at the phone company in all its incarnations, Jane had worked with people from every conceivable background, who led every conceivable kind of life. But thirty years ago, she’d been struggling behind closed doors, married to a man who no longer loved her, raising a difficult child, and trying to keep up the fiction, to herself and all around her, that everything was fine.

Irma, it turned out, was widely read and terribly funny. Although she’d never married, she was neither a virgin nor a prude. She was the most generous person Jane knew in every sense of the word and a great friend.

“I called to ask about Evangeline and Maurice,” Jane said. “I had cocktails with them tonight.”

“Ah, Evangeline.” Irma chuckled. “We met at work. She was an art therapist. She was passionate about the job. You’ll find she’s passionate about everything.”

“What happened to her husband?”

“Husbandzzz.” Irma emphasized the “s.” “There were four. Divorced. Died. Divorced. Died.”

“Beheaded. Lived,” Jane responded.

“Not quite in Henry the Eighth’s league.” Irma laughed.

“But a goodly number. Does she have kids?”

“Yes. Two from marriage one, and two from marriage three. They’re all grown. Spread around the country. I get the sense they’re not around much.”

“Hum.”

“Hum, what?”

Hum, the distance adult children kept was dangerous ground for Jane. “What’s the deal with Maurice?” she asked.

“I’ve never quite figured it out. He’s been hanging around her for the past couple of years. I think Evangeline loves him, in the sense that you’d love a particularly devoted dog.”

“Thanks,” Jane said. “That’s helpful. Best to Minnie.”

“You’re welcome.” Irma sounded relieved. “I’m just glad you’re not mad.”

* * *

Jane watched TV on the enormous flat screen mounted over the gas fireplace, then turned in. But sleep didn’t come. A strange bed in a strange place was seldom welcoming. And, despite how sure she’d sounded, Jane was nervous about the advice she’d given Paul. Had she been precipitous—too anxious to prove her value? Should she have assessed more before she recommended?

She tossed. And turned. She got up and went to the bathroom. She returned to bed and read a little. She stared at the clear surfaces of the bedroom in the guest apartment, beautifully decorated but so impersonal. She turned out the bedside light. Then tossed and turned and repeated the whole sequence. At a little before one a.m. she gave up, got out of bed, and headed to the living room.

Jane opened the slider and walked onto the balcony. The heat hit her like a warm, wet towel. The day hadn’t cooled when the sun went down. If anything it had gotten more humid. Around her, almost all the condo windows were dark, as was the clubhouse. Some lights shone from the long-term care facility in the distance, but it, too, slumbered. The waning moon was a sliver in the night sky, throwing no light, but in front of her the quad was well lit with faux gas, cast-iron street lamps along the paths.