Looking for Peyton Place

by Barbara Delinsky

  I was also drawn to her scent. Everything about her was honeysuckle, from the oil she dabbed behind her ears, to the sachets that scented her clothes, to the soap with which she washed her hands. She generated an aromatic little cloud that followed her around the store. Honeysuckle might not have been my favorite scent, any more than roses were. But just as the smell of roses conjured up Road’s End Inn and told me I was on my way home, honeysuckle conjured up the haven of The Bookshop. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, I no longer needed the scent to capture the feeling; one step in the door of this shop and the welcome came to me all on its own.

  Fifteen years had made little difference in Mrs. Klausson’s appearance; she still wore a pressed blouse and neat linen slacks. I could see that she was shorter than she had been when I left town, and more wrinkled—neither of which I’d had the presence of mind to see when she had come to the house to pay her condolences in June. But her eyes lit up when she saw me enter, and, abandoning a pair of clients at none other than Grace’s table, she was by my side in a flash.

  “Well, well, well,” she said with a twinkly smile and a fond once-over, “look at you. Our most famous writer.”

  “Second only to you-know-who,” I reminded her. It was our long-standing joke.

  “She’s dead, but you’re alive,” the woman declared. Favoring her arthritic neck, she turned her whole body and, clutching my hand, pulled me toward the clients she had left. “This is Annie Barnes. Annie, you remember my old friend Carolee Haynes. And this fabulous woman with her is the daughter of an old friend of hers. Her name is Tyra Ann Moore, and she’s in visiting us from Tucson with her husband and two girls.”

  Carolee smiled dutifully. She might have been a friend of Mrs. Klausson’s, but she had never been a friend of mine. Nor, come to think of it, had she ever been a friend of my mother’s. The Hayneses lived in a Georgian mansion on Birch; Carolee had always considered those of us in Victorians on Willow to be beneath her. She was tall, lean, and starched. Even the wrinkles around her mouth looked ironed in, no doubt from pursing those thin lips in disdain.

  Tyra Ann Moore was another story. Blonde-haired and standing barely five-four, she exuded warmth and generosity. Her voice held both. “You’re Annie Barnes? I don’t believe it! You’re one of my favorite writers.”

  “Then we’re even,” I said with a crooked grin. “Tucson is one of my favorite places.”

  “Annie grew up here,” said Mrs. Klausson with pride, “which was what I was about to tell you right before she arrived. She was a fixture in this shop for more years than I can recall. That’s why I keep her books on the shelf nearest to this table.”

  “In the shadow of Grace,” Carolee intoned dramatically.

  “East of Lonely was the best,” Tyra said with a hand on her chest. “I can’t believe it’s really you! You look so normal. I mean, down to earth. Do you spend your summers here? Do you come back to write? Are you working on something new?”

  “I’d like to know that too,” Carolee remarked.

  “I’ve already finished my next book,” I told Tyra. “It’s being published in the spring.”

  “Which didn’t answer the question,” Carolee said.

  “Oh, Carolee,” scolded Mrs. Klausson, “let her be. She’s just lost her mother. She’s back to be with her sisters, aren’t you, dear?”

  I barely had a chance to nod when a third customer joined us. She was close to my age, and had dark brown hair and deep olive skin. Her voice was vibrant. “This has to be the best place for a writer. There’s a secret around every corner.”

  “Juanita,” Carolee scolded.

  Mrs. Klausson made the introductions. “Annie, this is Juanita Haynes. She’s married to Carolee’s youngest boy, Seth.”

  I had never had cause to care for Seth, who had never had cause to care for me. But my feelings changed in the instant. Knowing that he had fallen in love with a Latino woman and had dared bring her to Middle River endeared him to me. Likewise, knowing what this poor woman would face with a mother-in-law like Carolee in a town like Middle River endeared her to me.

  “I’m glad to meet you, Juanita. Do you and Seth live in town, or are you visiting?”

  “Just visiting,” Carolee answered for her daughter-in-law. “They’re both in hedge funds in New York. We rarely get to see them. A few days here, a few days there. Surely not enough to hear secrets.”

  Juanita grinned mischievously. “But I did hear about Father William.”

  Carolee shushed her, but Tyra was clearly interested. “What about him?”

  “He has a sweetheart.”

  “Mary Barrett is his housekeeper,” Carolee corrected primly. “She lives in, because there happens to be an extra room in the parish house, and Father William welcomes the rent.”

  “He doesn’t charge her rent,” said Mrs. Klausson.

  “I know that, Marsha, but we’re quibbling with words. He lets her use the room in exchange for cleaning the house and the church. It’s a business arrangement, very much the equivalent of rent. There is nothing going on between them.”

  “That’s not what Seth’s friend Peter said,” Juanita teased. “Peter does carpentry work for Father William. He saw them in bed together.”

  Carolee’s mouth was as pinched as could be. “Peter Doohutton is a drunk, like his father was before him, and he’s no friend of Seth’s. They happened to have been in the same class in school. Truly, Juanita, I wouldn’t trust what Peter says. Father William is a man of the cloth, and he’s been here a lot longer than you.”

  I would have spoken up on Juanita’s behalf, if Juanita hadn’t been so clearly enjoying herself. A beautiful woman, she exuded confidence and smarts. I figured that Carolee had met her match with this one.

  “Hey,” Juanita said now, “I’m fine with Father William whatever he does. He’s a great guy.”

  “Then let’s not spread gossip.”

  “Spread?” Juanita echoed, barely containing a smile. “There’s no spreading when it’s already done—at least, that’s the impression I got when we went to church.”

  “We are Congregationalists,” Carolee remarked. “Father William is a Catholic. We got no impression of him, because we were not in his church.”

  “But plenty of people were,” Juanita said. “Seth’s friend John was telling us about it at brunch—and neither he nor his father are drunks. They’re selectmen, both of them, here in Middle River. John says attendance at Our Lady is as high as ever. He says that most people don’t really care what Father William does at night, as long as it’s with a woman.”

  Carolee glared at Mrs. Klausson. “Do you see what’s happening here? They’re condoning it.”

  Mrs. Klausson humored her friend. “No, no, Carolee. They’re just leaving well enough alone.”

  “But the talk—”

  “The talk does no harm. It dies at the town line.”

  “Unless,” said Carolee, “someone chooses to write a book about it.” Lips pursed, she looked at me.

  I was annoyed enough by the woman to want to lash out, and probably would have disgraced myself by saying something like, Write a book? That might be a good idea after all, because Father William isn’t the only one having an affair with his housekeeper, and in fact, maybe he got the idea from your husband, who for years and years and years was slipping home every Friday while you were having your nails done, to settle up the bill with your longtime housekeeper, what was her name? if Tyra Ann Moore, still starstruck, hadn’t jumped in and saved us all.

  “Will you tell us about your next book, Annie? What’s the title? Will you carry any of the characters over from East of Lonely? When is it coming out—I mean, what month?” Before I could begin to answer, she said, “I just can’t believe you’re here. I’m buying a copy of each of your books for you to sign. Would you do that? No, I’ll buy two copies, one for me and one for a friend back home who loves your work as much as I do….”

  Sam Winchell was another of the few I had call
ed a friend during my Middle River years. Sam was younger than Mrs. Klausson, probably sixty-five now, which meant he had been in his forties when we had worked together and fifty when I left town. Like Seth Buswell in Peyton Place, Sam was the son of an influential man, in this instance a United States senator. Like Grace’s Seth, Sam had inherited enough money to own and operate the local weekly and, at the same time, afford a house on Birch. Like the fictitious Seth, Sam was disdainful of bigots and impatient with those who threw their power around, meaning that he had limited patience not only for people like Carolee Haynes, but for Sandy Meade, as well.

  That said, Sam was an avid golfer, part of a foursome that played eighteen holes at a club forty minutes away on all but the most rainy of Thursdays. He had been doing this when I had worked for him those high school summers, and judging from the reverence with which he still talked of golf in the paper, he hadn’t changed.

  Sam’s foursome included Sandy Meade. Stories of their bickering on the greens were legendary, as were those few occasions when a game was played minus one of the men when a particularly strong disagreement cropped its ugly, if short-lived, head.

  By the way, I had every bit the respect for Sam that I had for Mrs. Klausson. But Sam was always called Sam. The only people who called him Mr. Winchell were from away, and it lasted only until he could wave a hand and say a brusque, “Call me Sam.”

  I timed my visit so that I would arrive at the Middle River Times office on Thursday at eleven. Yes, I wanted to say hello to Sam, but even more, I wanted to pore through the archives to make a tally of the town’s sick. Granted, it wouldn’t be exact. Greg was right; doctors could give me better figures, but only if they chose to, and it was a big if. They could easily stonewall, and then turn around and tell the Meades I was asking. Was it worth the risk? Not yet. I figured I could visit with Sam until he left to play golf, then peruse the paper to my heart’s content. Sam’s staff wouldn’t be around. The paper came out Thursday mornings, and this was Thursday. Within an hour, the newspaper office would be deserted.

  The place was front and center on Oak Street, its brick newly painted, mullioned windows washed, trim freshly painted. Sam had always been fastidious about things like these, and clearly that hadn’t changed.

  No sooner had I let myself in the door, though, when I was hit by the smell of cigar. Sam’s fastidiousness had never included his lungs. The cigar in his mouth was as much a fixture of the man as his gray pants and bow tie. No one working for Sam ever complained about the smell; to do so would have meant instant dismissal. I figured that come the day Sam was gone, this place would have to be fumigated big-time to remove the last of that smell.

  The front desk was deserted, the nearby leather chairs empty. Two offices branched off the main room. I went to the one on the right, led there as much by the strength of the scent as by habit.

  Sam, who was tipped back in his chair reading the hot-off-the-press edition of the Middle River Times, spotted me over the paper and broke into a grin. His chair creaked as it straightened; the paper landed on the desk with a careless rustle. Rising, he came forward, put an arm around my shoulder, and gave me a fatherly squeeze.

  “It’s about time you got here,” he complained gruffly. “You’ve been most everywhere else in town first.”

  “I have not been most everywhere else,” I returned. “In case you’ve forgotten, there are not too many places where I’m welcome.”

  Sam made a sputtering sound. “That was history. You’re a noted writer now. You can go anywhere you want. I’m real proud of you, Annie.”

  I smiled. “Thank you. That means a lot. The rest, well, you know, people jumping on the bandwagon, it’s pretty empty.”

  “And that, right there, is why you’ll continue to be a success. Nothing goes to your head, and that’s just one other way you’re different from our Grace,” he added, picking up the thread of a conversation we had often had before. Sam, like Mrs. Klausson, shared my fascination with Grace.

  I defended her as always. “I don’t know that success went to her head. She was just unprepared for it and had no idea what to do. I’m not sure I would have known either, back then. Peyton Place was the first of a new breed. No one knew what to expect.”

  “Well, we do now,” Sam concluded, arching a brow. “So I want you to make me a promise. Whatever you write while you’re here, I want to serialize it in the Times.”

  I laughed. “I am not here to write.”

  “Sandy says you are. He called me earlier and ordered me to wheedle what I can from you.” He shot a look at the wall clock. “I’m meeting him in forty minutes, and you can be sure he’ll know you’ve been here and want to know what we said.”

  “Is he nervous?” I asked, enjoying myself. After growing up powerless in this town, I was feeling a definite satisfaction at their reaction to me now. I had felt it with Aidan in a very personal way. With Sandy it was broader, more general, and, given the extent of his power, even sweeter.

  “Oh, you know,” Sam said dismissively, but I wasn’t letting go.

  “No, I don’t. What have the Meades done?”

  Sam gave a grunt. “What haven’t they done? But don’t get me started on this. Sandy and I walk softly around each other. I could cite you half a dozen things he does that drive me crazy.”

  “Cite one,” I invited.

  Separating himself from me, Sam went to the desk and neatly folded the paper. “One? If I told you one and you proceeded to write about it, I might find my computers not working next Tuesday, and if that were to happen, there’d be no paper next Thursday. Not that my livelihood depends on one week of the paper, but it would be a royal pain, not to mention cause a big mess with advertisers who pay by the week.”

  “Sandy wouldn’t sabotage your computers. My sister is his computer person, and she would never do something like that.”

  “Not if her job was on the line? Not if her husband’s was, too? They both work for Meade, and he would use that for all it’s worth. If they lost their jobs, you can be sure they wouldn’t find others in this town, so how’re they going to support their kids?”

  “They could bring charges against Sandy.”

  “And who’s gonna testify?” Sam smiled sadly. “So there’s your one thing he does that drives me crazy. This is nothing new, Annie. Nothing’s changed.”

  I was thinking that it ought to change, that the Meades were truly evil, that if I could prove the mill was contaminating the town with mercury waste and was breaking laws to do it, the family might finally get what it deserved, when Sam said, “I gotta run or I’ll miss my tee time. Come on. I’ll walk you to your car. Let word get back to old Sandy about that.”

  “Actually, I’d love to sit here awhile and read the paper. Catch up a little.”

  “Why? I send you the damn thing every week.”

  I slid him an apologetic look.

  He sighed. “And you don’t read them.”

  “I skim,” I said, not quite a lie. I often did skim one article or another. Usually, though, my reading was thorough. Not so my memory, which was why I needed this time.

  Sam, in his innocence, was flattered enough to leave me to my work.

  I started with the current issue, the one he had been reading. It told me, in grand detail, that the library had been given another Meade grant to buy new books, that a full-time ophthalmologist was now affiliated with the Middle River Clinic, that a fire on th’other side had gutted two houses, leaving eleven people homeless, that the state was cutting the money for our schools again, necessitating an emergency town meeting in September to discuss what to do, that a local plumber had been detained for driving under the influence, that for the third weekend in a row vandals had taken baseball bats to mailboxes on Birch and Pine, that the Hepplewaites, who owned Road’s End Inn and sponsored the Peyton Place tours of the town, were celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary on Saturday, and that Omie was recovering from pneumonia.

  The news about Omi
e concerned me. I liked Omie. She had been old since I could remember, everyone’s grandmother and a great-grandmother in her own family many times over. Never a big talker, she was kind to the nth degree. When I used to sit by myself in a booth at the diner, she would bring over her tea and keep me company. There were times when that made things worse—like going to the movies with your mother on a Saturday night and seeing all your friends with dates. Other times, it was a godsend.

  Omie’s heart was kind. I made a vow to stop by and see her.

  Setting aside the current issue of the Times, I relocated to the front room, where the most recent months’ issues hung on tidy wood racks, and began to peruse the archives. The “Health Beat” column was always on the fourth page, top left. Sam was fastidious in this, too. He believed that people should know exactly where their favorite columns were, and didn’t want phone calls coming to him when readers couldn’t find what they wanted.

  Working backward chronologically, I read column after column. It didn’t take long to exhaust the hard copy, at which time I moved to the left inner office to access those on microfiche—and all the while, I kept notes on a pad beside me, marking dates, names, and illnesses.

  Most newspapers probably wouldn’t list enough sick people to make this search worth my while, but Sam was a clever marketer. He knew that people loved seeing their names in print. Middle River was small enough and the Middle River Times hungry enough for copy, to make details not only feasible but advisable. What another town might consider irrelevant was included—a chicken pox outbreak in the local Cub Scout den with the names of children stricken, or random cases of Lyme disease or asthma. Broken limbs were reported case by case, with names, cause of the break (e.g., auto accident, fall from bicycle, soccer game), and often even the color of the cast applied and by whom. The column also listed what doctors in town attended which conferences out of town. Our Tom Martin took the lead in those, both attending and conducting seminars. His specialty was general practice, or the revival thereof, which didn’t tell me much about the possibility of mercury poisoning.