“That’s okay,” said Rob. “You can tell me later.”
Neither Ruggman nor the structural engineer seemed as put off by the prospect of accommodating the extra inch and a quarter as Rob thought they would be. Then again, Ruggman’s thick and craggy face didn’t lend itself easily to emotional nakedness: he could have been cursing both Rob and Christine Cabot and they’d never know it.
Ruggman grunted twice as he turned the tile over and over in his giant paws, and then he and the structural engineer set to work immediately on their tasks, conferring like a couple of political operatives, Ruggman punching numbers into his cell phone and the two of them walking back and forth along the rich brown mud that would one day be the back lawn of Cabot Lodge.
“Mark said he thought we wouldn’t be too delayed by this,” said Mrs. Cabot.
Guardedly, Rob said, “Hmm.” He didn’t agree. Was Ruggman committing the ultimate sin, was he telling the client what she wanted to hear rather than what she needed to hear? It was possible. It was likely. They all did it sometimes. He’d been doing it for months.
Mrs. Cabot smiled and issued an extended sigh. “Mark is really great,” she said. “Don’t you think so, Robbie? Very salt-of-the-earth.”
Ruggman had his back to Mrs. Cabot and Rob, and he was on the phone; it was impossible to read his expression.
“Very,” said Rob. “Definitely.”
“I’m going to feel like Lady Grantham, living with this tile!” said Mrs. Cabot. “I can’t believe I found this.”
Rob didn’t answer; he was looking out at the way the land sloped toward the lake. He could see two children on the dock that belonged to the house next door. That reminded him of his own two children; he should call to check in. He turned toward Mrs. Cabot, looking for a way to extricate himself.
“Do you watch Downton Abbey?” Mrs. Cabot asked.
“What? No. No, I don’t. Eliza does, I think. Yes, she definitely does. Is that the one with the accents?”
“It is,” said Mrs. Cabot. She didn’t look like herself today; she looked almost, for lack of a better word, happy. “Actually, I guess it’s not Lady Grantham I’d feel like, because she lives in a different house, a smaller house, and I’m not sure if that house would have tiles or not. I would be one of the Crawleys.”
Some of that slope would be filled in once the construction on the massive patio began. Rob allowed himself to imagine the patio, the heat lamps, the Thanksgiving appetizers laid out on the Cabots’ outdoor tables, which, along with all of the furniture, had been ordered and signed for and duly delivered into storage until the high-end cushions were ready to receive the bottoms of Christine Cabot, her progeny, and her progeny’s progeny.
Rob didn’t have the outdoor plans on him, but it seemed to him, just eyeballing it, that the edge of the patio would be closer to the lake than it should be. He was chewing on this concern when Christine Cabot moved closer to him.
Another pearl of wisdom from Mo Francis: Trust your gut. If you think something is wrong, it probably is.
He swallowed it down. Mo Francis hadn’t always been right.
“You were always such a good boy, Robbie,” said Mrs. Cabot. “I remember when your father first moved to Thailand and your mother was a wreck, you were such a comfort to her. Such a comfort.”
Rob remembered it differently; he remembered that a bottle of top-shelf gin had been more of a comfort to Judith than he himself had been, but he thought he’d let that go.
“You know, Robbie,” said Mrs. Cabot, “I do have a friend who’d like to build a house of a similar caliber up here.”
Rob perked up. Mrs. Cabot had mentioned this mythical friend before, but she’d never actually produced a name or given Rob a contact number. She’d just dangled the fact of her existence in front of him like a lure. He knew from Ruggman that there were a few choice waterfront parcels for sale, and he knew from Ruggman’s assistant, Sharon, whose sister worked at Sebago Properties, the firm that had the listings, that there had been lots of lookers but no offers.
“Nadine Edwards,” she said. Rob thought, Finally, a name! He filed it away in his mental cabinet; he’d google the heck out of her later.
28
BARTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Deirdre
Deirdre was driving to the post office to mail the invitations to the gala. Lots of people went electronic these days, even for high-end events, but Deirdre did not believe that an email—no matter how elegantly put together—could carry the same weight as an actual hold-in-your-hand invitation. She believed in old-fashioned, cream-colored heavy paper with a proper font—Adagio or Belluccia—that you could magnetize to your refrigerator or affix to your kitchen bulletin board; something you’d walk by several times a day and that would cause you to feel the little flutter of excitement that reminded you that you had a Big Event to look forward to.
Deirdre parked her Tahoe on Main Street, not far from the post office, and was carefully removing the bag of invitations from the passenger seat when she heard her name. Ugh. There was no mistaking Sheila Rackley’s voice, high and quivering, like a violin with a loose string. She waved quickly and continued toward the post office, but Sheila caught up and turned in front of her like a traffic cop, forcing Deirdre to choose between stopping or ramming right into her. Deirdre stopped.
“What’ve you got there?” Sheila asked breathlessly. She was wearing exercise clothes and sneakers, and she jogged in place a little bit, probably for show.
“Invitations. To the gala.”
“Oooooooh. I hope there’s one in there for me!”
“Of course there is,” said Deirdre reluctantly. “You’re on the decorating committee. I’m not going to not invite you.”
“It’s been on my calendar forever,” said Sheila. She made a motion like she was writing something in the air above Deirdre’s head.
Deirdre said, “Great. Well…,” and tried to step around Sheila, but Sheila mirrored her movement, like the two of them were learning a complicated dance together, and kept talking. “Why’d you pick East Africa, anyway? I never asked you that.” She squinted at Deirdre. “Did you go there for study abroad or something?”
No, Deirdre had done a semester abroad in Florence, where she’d studied a lot of Chianti.
The truth was, Deirdre wasn’t one hundred percent sure why she had chosen East Africa. Plenty of areas of the world were war-torn, ravaged, intolerably destitute. She could have chosen India or Bangladesh or, for heaven’s sake, Iraq or Afghanistan.
Maybe because the names of the countries, when spoken one after another, were like a kind of poetry.
Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea.
Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda.
Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda.
And also because the kids in the EANY posters seized her heart and wouldn’t let go.