Mike spoke through his coffee cup. “He should be nervous.” He put down his drink and leaned toward Maxwell. From the corner of his eye, Maxwell could see Will doing the same thing. “Don’t you think so, Maxwell?”
They’d obviously moved on to today’s key topic. Maxwell still wasn’t sure what the agenda was, though. “You’re not thinking he’s going to get indicted, are you?”
Mike shrugged broadly. “It isn’t inconceivable.”
Maxwell tipped his head toward first Mike and then Will. “It’s inconceivable to me. Bruce might be a small-town politician, but he has the savvy of a ten-term congressman. There’s no way he doesn’t slither out of this.”
Mike nodded slowly. “It might not be as easy as you think for him to escape this time.”
Maxwell chuckled. “Your judgment is a little suspect in this area – though you’ve never told me why you have such an obsession with Bruce.” He looked over at Will. “You don’t think he’s going to hang over this, do you?”
Will looked down at his coffee, then over at Mike, and finally at Maxwell. “Hang as in be removed from office or go to jail? Nah, there’s very little chance of that. Next November is another story, though.”
Maxwell finally reached for his own coffee cup. “Really? That’s more than a year from now. This isn’t the first time Bruce has been implicated in dirty stuff, and he’s been reelected twice. You don’t think the town will be over this by then?”
Mike smiled slyly. “Not if the media does its job.”
Maxwell laughed. “What did he do to you?”
Mike put up a hand. “That’s not the point. The point is we have reason to believe the mayor might truly be vulnerable to opposition this time.”
Maxwell remembered similar talk three years ago. Bruce took sixty-four percent of the vote. “If anyone is crazy enough to oppose him.”
Will put a hand on Maxwell’s forearm. “‘Crazy’ is a strong word, Maxwell.”
Maxwell found the solemnity in Will’s tone surprising. “Are you telling me that one of the two of you are thinking about running? Is that why the Post is going after this story so hard?”
Even Joey would have been able to read the conspiratorial glance that passed between Maxwell’s two lunch companions then.
“Neither of us has the right constitution for politics,” Will said slowly. “You, on the other hand, have both the mettle and the vision.”
Maxwell was so unprepared for this conversation, that he thought he might have heard the stationery story owner wrong. “The mettle and the vision for what?”
Mike leaned forward. “Don’t try to tell me you’ve never considered political office.”
Had he ever considered political office? In many ways, being president of the Chamber was exactly that. Certainly, it was political enough. “Are you guys saying what I think you’re saying?”
Mike smiled at him. “If you think we’re saying you should seriously consider running for mayor next year, then yes.”
Maxwell felt his gut tighten. Mayor? Him? It wasn’t as though he’d never considered the idea of some day pursuing an elected position in Oldham. He’d been so focused on enterprise, though. The Chamber position was a nice bridge because the policymaking was all about business. Would he have an equal passion for education, civic affairs, security, and the like?
“There are a lot of people who would rally behind you, Maxwell,” Will said.
Maxwell guessed that was true. The merchants in Oldham were extremely vocal, and monthly spats aside, he’d been a strong advocate for them.
While he was still wrapping his mind around the idea of running for mayor, he had to consider the possibility that running might lead to winning, even if Bruce had crushed his other opponents. If he won, his life would change dramatically. This meant that Annie and Joey’s lives would change as well. Maxwell was sure the toddler could handle it. After this weekend, he wasn’t positive he could say the same about his wife.
“Well, I can honestly tell you that this is the last thing I thought we’d be talking about today, guys. You’re going to have to give me a little time to absorb this.”
**^^^**
Maria had no idea why she hadn’t thought of this sooner. Providence was only an hour and a half from Oldham, which meant she only needed to get out of the house by ten or so any time she wanted to have lunch with her daughter. Olivia had seemed so far away since she went to college, but Brown was actually closer than either Manhattan or Boston, and they’d taken day trips to both cities numerous times over the years. And getting out of the house was much less of an issue for her the past week than it had been since late August. On most days, Maria would find herself stirring when Doug got up for his shower, and by the time he was off to work, she’d be gearing up for a session with her guitar and her songbooks.
Shawn Colvin’s album of cover songs was on the iPod for the drive. Listening to a distinctive singer-songwriter like Colvin interpreting other songwriters was inspirational for Maria, making her realize she needed to infuse more of herself in the songs she chose. Many of the artists Maria admired covered the work of others on occasion – several of JT’s most successful songs were covers – but for some reason it never struck her until now that she should be doing what singers did with the best covers, performing the song as though she’d written it herself.
Between Colvin’s silky voice and Maria’s rumination on interpretation, the drive seemed to last no more than a few minutes. In fact, it seemed to take as long to navigate through the traffic around the campus, as it had taken to make the entire trip up I-95.
Maria wanted to surprise Olivia with her visit, so she hadn’t let her know she was coming. Now that she was out of the car, though, she had to call Olivia’s cell phone, since she wasn’t sure where her daughter might be. Wednesdays were good days to visit Olivia, because she had a ten o’clock class and then a long break until her class at four. Wednesdays would in all likelihood be the days Maria came up when she wanted to take her daughter to lunch.
Olivia picked up on the third ring. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Nothing,” Maria said, trying to keep the playfulness out of her voice. “I was just thinking about getting some lunch.”
“Gee, Mom, thanks for sharing that. Did you post it on your Facebook page?”
“I appreciate the reminder. What are you up to?”
“I hung back to talk to my professor for a few minutes after class and I’m walking back to my dorm now. I’ll probably grab some lunch myself pretty soon.”
“Sounds good,” Maria said, hearing the smile in her voice. “So where should we go?”
“Huh?”
“Well, I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d hit a greasy spoon with my daughter.”
There was a pause on the other end, and Maria imagined Olivia’s wide-eyed expression at the thought that her mother had made this trip just to see her.
“You’re here?” Olivia said after ten seconds or so.
“Isn’t that cool?”
“Yeah, cool. And you want to have lunch?”
“Well, it’s about noon and we’re both hungry, so it seems like an option we should consider.”
“Uh, yeah, great. There are a few places just off campus I’ve been wanting to try. I just need to drop my stuff off in my room.”
They set up a place to meet and Maria strolled around the campus for fifteen minutes while Olivia did whatever she needed to do. It was windier up here than it had been in Oldham this morning, and Maria wished she’d brought a heavier coat. None of that mattered, though, when she enfolded her daughter in her arms.
“I can’t believe you just got in the car and drove up here,” Olivia said when they started walking toward the restaurant.
Maria smiled broadly. “It was really easy. This could be a thing we do, you know? I know I don’t usual
ly like to drive too far by myself, but this was a piece of cake, really.”
Olivia just nodded, cinched up the collar of her coat, and they walked to the restaurant without saying much else.
They wound up at an Indian buffet that Olivia hadn’t been to before. “I hear it’s good,” she said, “and we won’t have to wait for our food.” They got a table, went up to fill their plates, and by the time they returned, their waiter had come by with naan and pieces of tandoori chicken.
“I’m not going to want to have anything for dinner tonight,” Maria said, examining the bounty she’d put on her plate. “Your father’s going to have to get by with leftovers.”
“So Dad’s good?”
“Your dad’s great. He misses you, of course, but work has been fantastic lately.”
“Yeah, he mentioned that the last time we talked. How’s everybody else?”
Maria did a quick rundown of the family, including the latest on the party planning. “Also, I have a feeling that your Aunt Deborah might be seeing someone?”
Olivia brightened. “Really? Have you met him?”
“I’m not even sure if there is a him, but I just have a feeling.”
“Are you having visions, Mom? That’s not exactly like you.”
Maria frowned. “I’m not having visions. Just intuition. And what do you mean it’s not exactly like me? Creative people trust their imaginations.”
“I’m sure creative people do,” Olivia said slyly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Olivia waved her hands dismissively. “Nothing, never mind.”
Olivia concentrated on her food for several minutes after that. Her last comment had thrown Maria off balance. Did her daughter think she was an automaton? Didn’t she remember the guitar playing and songwriting? Had Maria spent so much time away from her instrument that her daughter didn’t associate her with the guitar at all? Maria wanted to tell Olivia about starting to play again and about the new songs that were starting to simmer in her brain, but something held her back.
The conversation picked up again a few minutes later, but stayed very much at the surface level: the differences in the weather between Providence and Oldham, what the Halloween decorations looked like on Hickory Avenue, how limited the salad bar selections were in the dining hall, that sort of thing. Maria had been hoping for conversation closer to the great heart-to-hearts she and Olivia had regularly the month before Olivia left, but there was time for that. Olivia didn’t have another class until four, so maybe they’d find a coffee bar to kick back in for a while before Maria headed home.
That plan evaporated as soon as Maria signed the credit card receipt. Olivia stood up quickly and shrugged on her jacket.
“I gotta get back,” she said.
“Really? I was hoping we could go for a little walk, maybe grab some coffee.”
Olivia scrunched up her face. “I’m in the middle of my day, Mom.”
Maria looked down at the table and then back up at her daughter. “But you don’t have another class for a while.”
“And I have to prepare for that class. One of the things I’ve learned very quickly is that I can’t just show up here the way I did in high school. Besides, I’m supposed to meet a friend at three.”
Maria’s heart grew heavier. “You can’t reschedule because your mother drove an hour and a half to see you?”
“If you’d have let me know you were coming, I could have set things up differently. You kinda surprised me here.”
“That was sort of the point.”
Olivia’s shoulder’s slumped. “I know, Mom, and it was really nice of you, but I’m kinda in the middle of things.”
There wasn’t much else to say about this, so Maria got up from the table and asked Olivia if she would walk with her to her car.
As she opened the car door, Maria remembered the tear-soaked goodbye she and her daughter shared in late August. Now, Olivia was practically shutting the car door on Maria’s legs.
“You’re still planning to come down for the party, right?” Maria said as she started the engine.
Olivia bobbed her head quickly. “Yeah, of course. I’ve been planning to come down all along.”
“Just making sure.”
Olivia reached through the rolled-down window at that point and hugged her. “I love you, Mom.”
“Love you, too, Liv.”
Maria pulled out of the space and waved to her daughter as she drove off, realizing as she did that she would probably never make a visit like this again.
**^^^**
Deborah figured Sage and she weren’t likely to run out of conversation, something that often concerned her when she saw someone socially for the first time. In Sage’s case, though, they had a nearly endless number of prompts if things bogged down. All she’d have to do is mention a food item – mustards maybe, or perhaps Ventresca tuna – and they’d be good for another fifteen minutes. That made her that much more comfortable about the idea of their getting drinks together.
It was therefore surprising to find herself off the topic of food entirely, only minutes after her glass of wine arrived.
“Yes, I get it,” Sage said with the same intensity with which he’d sold her on preserves when they’d met, “and I’ll grant you it’s nice to see a museum where an abandoned warehouse used to be, but don’t you think it’s a little artificial?”
“Well,” Deborah said with a coy smile, “it’s a building. They’re rarely organic.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually.”
Sage tipped his head toward her, acknowledging that he knew that she knew that he knew she was playing with him. “The museum has nothing to do with the rest of the neighborhood.”
Deborah glanced at him over her wineglass. “You know where that kind of thinking leads, don’t you?”
“Logical growth?”
“I was thinking entropy.”
Deborah wondered where that retort came from. She wasn’t sure she’d ever said the word “entropy” aloud before.
Sage shrugged. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Wow, I never win arguments that easily.”
“You must be arguing with the wrong people.”
Deborah considered that, and then tried to remember the last argument she’d had at all – not that this exchange about the recently erected modern art museum in the former industrial town of Creston Mills counted as an actual argument. She’d yelled at one of her produce purveyors a few days ago about giving her paltry parsnips. Was that an argument? She’d won that one as well. Maybe she did usually win arguments this easily, at least when they were entirely innocuous.
Sage caught her eye and smiled at her, acknowledging that he’d noticed she’d drifted off for a moment.
“I was doing some reading about the Sugar Maple Inn,” he said. “Did you know that it was the headquarters for a prohibition opposition group in the early twenties.”
“I might have heard something about that, you know, since I’ve spent nearly my entire life there.”
“Yes, I guess you would have. There was quite a bit about your parents at the historical society.”
Deborah’s eyes widened. “You went to the historical society to research my family? Do you do this with everyone you meet.”
“Not everyone. To be honest, I was there to look up some information about my building. I’m trying to come up with a way to incorporate some history into the store’s merchandising. While I was there, I decided to look up the legendary Golds.”
“Does that mean you were a little bit awed about having drinks with me tonight?”
Sage grinned. “Yes, but not for that reason.” He took a sip of his Laphroaig. “Your parents were honest-to-goodness icons in this community. That’s very impressive.”
“And you can bet I use it shamelessly to my advantage. Just the other day, I threw my name around to get the best treadmill at the gym. I’m thinking about using it to get an invitation to lunch at the White House next.”
Sage nodded slowly. “I get it; you don’t like to talk about your family’s place in the community.”
Deborah put up a hand. “No, that’s not really it at all. It’s just that Oldham has a lot of icons. It seems that two-thirds of the people here have been around for decades.”
“Ah, so I’m dragging down the average.”
Deborah smiled. “Yeah, between you and the new owners of the Sugar Maple, the whole town is going to hell.”
The conversation detoured away from Oldham at that point. First toward a speech about nanotechnology that Sage saw on YouTube, then toward national politics, and eventually even toward condiments, though not specifically mustard. Three glasses of wine later, they strolled out onto the street, where both of them had remarkably found parking spaces. They stopped by Deborah’s car and she pulled out her keys.
“I had a great time tonight, thanks,” Sage said.
Deborah reached out to touch him on the arm. “Me too.”
“Your officially my best friend in Oldham now. You snuck past the mailman in the last half-hour.”
“I’m honored.”
They locked eyes at that point and neither said anything for a very long moment.
Sage leaned toward her. “Can we do it again soon?”
“I think I’d like that.”
“Would it bother you if we called our next evening a ‘date?’”
Deborah felt her face warming. “I’d be good with calling it that.”
He leaned over and kissed her softly on the cheek. Deborah strongly wanted to pull him toward her, but she knew it was smarter to leave things at this.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, taking her hand for a brief instant before turning toward his car.
Eight
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