One Year

by Mary McDonough

  “Thank you,” she said. Her own meal was hardly touched. The buzzing inside her wouldn’t allow her to eat.

  “But I thought we were going to have chicken tonight. You said something about a recipe from that popular Israeli chef you’re always going on about.”

  Alexis felt the hot color rush to her face. “I am not ‘always going on about’ anything or anyone,” she retorted.

  PJ leaned back on the hind legs of his chair. “Sorry. Anyway, I just thought you said we were going to have chicken.”

  “I changed my mind. Is that all right? Or should I have asked you for permission to have my very own thought? And don’t sit like that. It drives me crazy.”

  PJ let the chair tip forward so that once again it rested on all four legs. “That’s not what I meant at all,” he protested.

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “Nothing. I was just making conversation. Really, Alexis, lately it seems that you’ve got a problem with everything I say and do!”

  “That’s not true!” she cried.

  “Well, it sure feels like it. Am I really so objectionable? I’m not trying to be, really.”

  Alexis bit back a nasty reply. She did not want another screaming match. She did not. “Of course not,” she said.

  “You never used to criticize me the way you do now. Have I changed all that much since you met me?”

  Alexis put her hands on her lap and clenched them into fists. “No.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” PJ leaned forward and put out his hand as if to touch her shoulder. But he didn’t touch her.

  “Nothing,” she said, looking down at her lap. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired.”

  PJ sighed and abruptly rose from the table. “I am, too. I spent half the day trying to teach myself a computerized project management program so I don’t look like a complete fool compared to Blue Sound and whoever else Meadows is bringing in. Assuming I get that far in the bidding process, which doesn’t seem likely. I’m going to bed. Good night.”

  Alexis sat alone at the table for some time, all energy dissipated. Her mind was blank, her body heavy. Eventually, she got up and loaded the dishwasher. She didn’t have the energy to wash the pots and knives. They would keep until morning. Alexis sank wearily onto the couch. In the past weeks, PJ hadn’t once asked about her work for the Day in the Life project. He hadn’t once asked if she had seen more of Maureen Kline. He hadn’t once suggested that they have dinner at The Angry Squire or that they take an evening walk, just the two of them. He was totally immersed in his own concerns. He probably hadn’t even noticed the photo of her parents that was now on display in their bedroom. Why should he notice a photograph when he barely noticed his own wife right in front of him? God knows they hadn’t had sex in an age.

  Alexis rubbed her temples. She couldn’t imagine a man like Morgan Shelby complaining that his wife hadn’t served for dinner what she had promised to serve. She couldn’t imagine a man like Morgan Shelby allowing his grandmother to break into his apartment and hide objects she found objectionable. She couldn’t imagine a man like Morgan Shelby canceling an anniversary getaway just to please and placate that grandmother.

  Alexis shook her head. What was she doing? It wasn’t fair to compare PJ with Morgan. PJ was her husband, and she owed him a degree of respect. Besides, she really didn’t know Morgan all that well. Comparisons were futile and childish. With a feeling akin to despair, Alexis turned off the lamp, wrapped a chenille throw around her shoulders, and lay down on the couch. It was the first time since they had been married that she and her husband slept apart.

  CHAPTER 65

  At seven o’clock the next morning, Alexis was at her usual station on the corner of Main Street and Market Street. Her daily shot was set up, and at exactly three minutes after seven she would press the shutter button and take the photograph.

  And then, at two minutes past seven, she stepped back from the camera. No, she thought. No more. She detached the camera from the tripod and hung it around her neck. She folded the tripod. She had had enough of Mary Bernadette Fitzgibbon and of all she represented. She would no longer do the bidding of a domineering old woman who only had harsh words for her in return. Morgan, she thought, was right about the project, anyway. It was just busy work. Mary Bernadette had probably designed it specifically to keep Alexis out of trouble and within sight.

  When her equipment was safely stowed in the trunk of her car, Alexis drove to the office where she set about making a pot of coffee as if the morning was just like any other, as if she hadn’t just committed social suicide in terms of Oliver’s Well, the OWHA, and most important the Fitzgibbon family. As she measured the ground coffee and filled the pot with water from the bathroom sink, as she took the carton of milk from the minifridge and took a plastic spoon from a drawer, she acknowledged that abandoning the project in the way that she had was an act of passive aggression. And she acknowledged that before long she would have to account for her action. But she would handle that inevitable confrontation when it came. After all, as Morgan had pointed out, Mary Bernadette wasn’t as omnipotent as Alexis had made her out to be. She was just a bossy old woman.

  When the coffee was brewed, Alexis, feeling oddly calm, poured a cup and sat at the computer. She logged on to the Internet and began a search for online jewelry stores. Maybe she would buy herself a new wedding ring, one that actually matched her engagement ring. One that had not been forced upon her by Mary Bernadette Fitzgibbon.

  CHAPTER 66

  “Bats in the belfry, eh?”

  Leonard frowned. “Bats nesting under the eaves of an old building are no joking matter, I assure you.”

  Wynston Meadows waved his hand dismissively. “Then deal with it.”

  “It was my intention,” Leonard replied, “to do just that.”

  Mary Bernadette shot a glance at Neal, who frowned in response. Not one person in the room, not even Wallace or Joyce, she was sure, would argue the fact that the mood of the board meetings these days was drastically different from the mood before Wynston Meadows had joined the ranks. There had always been a sense of community and friendship, a sense that a wise solution to any problem was sure to be found, because every person at the table was dedicated to the same end—the good of their hometown. Now the meetings were a trial, the mood anxious and tense, with little laughter and even less open conversation. And what was the shared goal now? The appeasement of Wynston Meadows in the hopes of getting his promised millions.

  “Mary B., what do you say about bats in the belfry?”

  Mary Bernadette startled. Meadows was showing his teeth in a facsimile of a smile. “My name,” she said, “is Mary Bernadette. Mrs. Fitzgibbon will do just fine.”

  Meadows laughed. “That name of yours is quite a handful. Can’t you cut us some slack?”

  “No,” she replied. “I cannot.”

  “Respectfully,” Leonard said, “the lady has a right to her name.”

  With a little grin, Meadows bowed his head in assent.

  “Has the call for bids on the Stoker job gone out?”

  “Just about to. I’m a busy man, Leonard.”

  “Of course. I would be more than happy to—”

  “No need.”

  “It is traditional for the CEO to handle—”

  “What is this about new upholstery?” Meadows pointed to the day’s agenda.

  Anne cleared her throat. “The upholstery on several of the furnishings in the Kennington House is badly in need of repair or replacement.”

  “And?”

  “And I’ve located a design firm in Richmond that specializes in reproductions of old fabrics. The firm we’ve used in the past went out of business so—”

  Meadows laughed. “No surprise there.”

  “This new design firm,” Neal said, taking over from Anne, “is a bit more expensive than the last, but their work has been recognized as outstanding by several major museums across the country. I think it’s worth having them
take a look at the pieces in question and submit a bid for the job.”

  “I don’t agree. Why waste money on new cushion covers when no one is actually using the chairs and sofas?”

  There was a stunned silence after Meadows’s remark. Mary Bernadette doubted the evidence of her ears, but only for a moment. Wynston Meadows didn’t care a fig for historical preservation. He had made that abundantly clear before.

  Finally, Leonard said, “Wasting money? How is necessary maintenance wasting money? If our budget can sustain—”

  But Meadows cut him off, again. “Let me assure you,” he said, “that I know far more about budgets than anyone in this room.”

  “Of course you do,” Wallace said hurriedly. “I certainly don’t doubt that.”

  Mary Bernadette tightened her grip on her pen and looked to Richard, whose hands were pressed flat against the table as if to keep himself in check. Both Anne and Jeannette were pale. Neal’s expression was grim. Norma was examining a large gold ring on her right hand. Joyce shifted in her chair and smiled at Wynston Meadows. “If Mr. Meadows thinks we shouldn’t spend money on upholstery, then I say we should listen to him.”

  The woman literally simpers in his presence, Mary Bernadette thought with disgust. She wondered if Joyce’s husband knew his wife was making eyes at another man. She had half a mind to speak to Martin. It would serve the woman right, and her husband a man of the cloth!

  Abruptly, Meadows rose. “I’ve got an important meeting to attend,” he said. “We’ll deal with decorating issues some other time.”

  When he had gone, Richard slapped his hands against the table and turned to Joyce. “What would you suggest we do, Ms. Miller, invest in plastic slipcovers?”

  Joyce’s face turned a fierce shade of red, and Mary Bernadette repressed a smile.

  CHAPTER 67

  PJ was slumped on the couch, watching one of those awful reality shows about lumberjacks or alligator hunters. Alexis was convinced that he wasn’t really paying attention to what was on the screen. She was sure that his thoughts were with his beloved grandmother and Fitzgibbon Landscaping, the only two things that mattered to him.

  Alexis placed her hands on the edge of the kitchen sink. Her stomach was in a knot. No one from the OWHA seemed to have noticed that it had been days since she had posted a picture on the website. But someone would notice, and the thought frightened her, though not enough to make her pick up the project again and explain away her absence as forgetfulness. No. She most certainly would not go crawling back to Mary Bernadette and her pathetic Hysterical Society.

  “Dude, those are some righteous mud flaps!” These words were followed by the roar of a truck’s engine and raucous male laughter.

  Alexis flinched. What was she doing here in Oliver’s Well? Just that morning Diane had sent her an e-mail in which she shared the latest news about their old college crowd. Sue was still in med school, determinedly working toward her goal of becoming a pediatrician. Her fiancé, Marc, was doing well in law school. Stacy was moving to Paris for a year. Diane had gotten a raise and was planning a two-week vacation in Hawaii. Alexis’s parents had sent an e-mail, too. They had spent the weekend in New York City, where they had attended the opening night of a new opera at the Met. They were planning a trip to Italy next spring.

  And what, Alexis thought, have I achieved lately? Nothing. She had achieved nothing at all since marrying into the Fitzgibbon family. Alexis stared out through the kitchen window at Mary Bernadette and Paddy’s house. It was entirely dark but for a dim light behind the curtains of their bedroom. Alexis had come to imagine the house as a sentinel, home to an all-seeing and all-knowing guard who took her duties very, very seriously. Mary Bernadette was like that mythical three-headed dog—Cerberus, was it?—whose job it was to guard the gates of Hell so that no one confined to its depths could escape. Well, maybe that was going a bit too far; Mary Bernadette wasn’t physically terrifying. Still, Alexis believed that if she dared go out on her own one evening, Mary Bernadette, ever watching for misbehavior, would come stalking out of the house after her. And if she did manage to sneak out for a quick drink at The Angry Squire, the whole town would report the news to Mary Bernadette by morning. She still wasn’t sure that PJ’s grandmother hadn’t followed her to Somerstown the other day.

  She turned from the window. She wondered if she might talk to Maureen Kline about her discontent. She liked Maureen. But then she rejected the idea. Maureen herself had said that she considered the Fitzgibbon clan her family. She would choose Mary Bernadette and PJ over Alexis. She would have no choice. No, Alexis thought, she would have to be really desperate, even more than she felt now, to approach Maureen. There was Father Robert, of course. He would be bound to absolute confidentiality if she spoke to him in confession. But Father Robert was a friend of Mary Bernadette. Alexis doubted that even the threat of excommunication was enough to keep him from running to PJ’s grandmother with tales of her marital woes.

  But what was the use in talking to anyone? Nothing would change unless her husband changed. She would always be a stranger in Oliver’s Well unless PJ actively fought on her behalf for an important, independent place in the Fitzgibbons’ world.

  Alexis walked through the kitchen. “I’m going to bed,” she said in the direction of the living room.

  PJ didn’t look away from the television screen. “Good night,” he said.

  Alexis sighed and closed the bedroom door behind her.

  CHAPTER 68

  Mary Bernadette was sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of strong tea. She was alone in the house. PJ had asked Paddy to go with him to meet a potential client. There was no doubt that Wynston Meadows’s behavior had caused her grandson’s self-confidence to plummet. It angered Mary Bernadette. And it frustrated her that she could do nothing about it, much as it frustrated her that she had been unable to do anything about the disastrous meeting of the OWHA board the night before.

  Wynston Meadows had once again wrenched the meeting out of her control as soon as the first new item of business was introduced. And that item of business was the annual Oliver’s Well Independence Day festivities. Each year since its inception, the OWHA had played an important role in the celebrations. Together with the fire department they sponsored a hot dog stand with all profits going directly to the maintenance of the historic firehouse, now a museum, on Parker Street. Together with the local florist they sponsored the sale of corsages of red, white, and blue carnations. All floral profits went to the upkeep of Oliver’s Grove, the town’s one recreational park.

  Still, most people in Oliver’s Well would agree that the OWHA’s most important contribution to the Independence Day celebrations was the organization of the parade. At some point in the life of almost every resident of Oliver’s Well, he or she had marched in the July Fourth parade—as a Girl or Boy Scout; as a member of the high school marching band; dressed as the town’s seventeenth-century founders; as employees of small businesses, riding floats that illustrated their services; as members of the local VFW.

  But the night before, Wynston Meadows had announced that he wanted to cancel the parade—“A rather pedestrian activity, pardon the pun”—in favor of a fancy dress costume ball, to which the majority of the town would not be invited. And those who would be invited would be asked to make a donation of what Mary Bernadette thought was a prohibitive sum to the OWHA. She might have her standards, but she did not favor exclusionary measures. She believed that the town’s celebrations were for everyone to enjoy.

  She hadn’t been alone in her protest. “But the traditions are so important,” Anne had pointed out. “Everyone looks forward to the parade, especially the children.”

  To which Wynston Meadows had replied, “Children don’t make financial gifts.”

  “And what’s more American than a parade?” Leonard had added. “Marching bands and floats and the veterans in their old uniforms.”

  “The veterans,” Meadows had said, “would be smarter to st
ay in the comfort of their nursing homes. One of these days the paramedics will be peeling their dehydrated bodies off the pavement.”

  “It’ll be a deeply unpopular decision, mark my words,” Neal had pronounced. “I don’t think losing the support of the majority of Oliver’s Well is something the OWHA wants to risk.”

  To which Wynston Meadows had argued that the support of the majority of Oliver’s Well was no longer necessary, now that he was on hand to back it up financially. No one had pointed out that the OWHA had yet to see a penny of his money. In the end, the matter had been tabled until the next meeting, to give those members of the board who hadn’t voiced an opinion time to muster the courage to voice it.

  Mary Bernadette had passed Wynston Meadows in the foyer on the way out of the Wilson House. He was on his cell phone and she had heard him say, “The most pathetic of the bunch is that Leonard DeWittless.” She had left the building feeling slightly sick to her stomach.

  She still felt unwell and uneasy. No one on the board was standing up to their “benefactor” for fear of losing his promised millions. Were they all so cowardly and disloyal? Except for Neal, who so gallantly had defended her intellectual abilities to Wynston Meadows and who had volunteered to resign from the board. But how could she blame her colleagues for what really came down to cautious, responsible behavior? Like every other person involved with the OWHA, Mary Bernadette was acutely aware of the importance of Meadows’s promised money to the town. If he decided to withdraw his pledge, other donors both big and small, disappointed in the board’s failure to keep the gift they had been given, might follow suit, leading to the disintegration of the OWHA. The unhappy fact of the matter was that the OWHA needed Wynston Meadows.

  Mary Bernadette sighed. She truly had the town’s best interest at heart, yet her pride would not allow her to resign as chairman, a position she was sure Wynston Meadows coveted. She had already recused herself from the upcoming vote regarding the contract for the restoration of the landscaping of the Stoker property. Wasn’t that sacrifice enough?