Maggie turned down the driveway of Kettle Hill Farm as Walter Fayerwether’s little blond cookie was driving out in their Volvo—just another minor irritant that barely registered, like a single grain of salt in the open wound that Maggie’s life had become. At quarter to nine in the morning, the crickets seemed to be shrieking in the gardens. The sun glared menacingly above the tree line to the east out of an unnaturally brilliant blue sky. The house proved to be unpopulated. Lindy, of course, was not on the premises, nor Hooper or Quinona the maid or Nina.
Nina! The thought of commencing a search for another culinary assistant nauseated Maggie, evoking the spiritual equivalent of a stench like tripe boiled with cabbage (a strange, old-world favorite of her grandma Elsie’s). Meanwhile, it unnerved Maggie to realize she had no idea what day it was. Was this the next stage in a life unraveling? It wasn’t until she entered the kitchen to study the wall-mounted catering manifest that she discovered it was Friday. To her vast relief, the manifest showed no jobs until the coming Wednesday—a luncheon for the Fairfield County League of Women Voters, seventy-five heads, count ’em, a horror, no, an impossibility without Nina and at least two “shiftlings,” as they called the ever changing cast of part-timers. In a panic, she called Nina at home once again, and this time the message said, “Hi, Nina here. Well, actually not here. I will be in Spain and Morocco until June fourth. Leave a message. Get back to you then. Bye.”
Why, the message sounded … blithe! Gone off on a lark! Was this aggression by other means? Was the very blitheness of the message intended to wound her? Maggie wondered, and was further proof needed that Nina had left her employ? It was too, too depressing. Maggie rummaged halfheartedly through the huge Rolodex there on the butcher-block counter. For all the hundreds of cards in it—including many employees past and present—there was nobody she could really depend upon, in the Nina sense of rock-ribbed professional reliability. Each name greeted her with a little stab of anguish as she recalled some special area of inadequacy—too slow, too sloppy, too mouthy, too clumsy, too lacking in imagination, too starstruck. Nina had none of those failings, and now she was gone. Lost! Maggie slumped. The thought of planning a menu or even a shopping list for the League luncheon heaped her with despair. As the emotion rapidly morphed into more familiar terror, she lunged for the telephone and punched out a number.
“Why, Harold,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Is that you, Maggie?” Harold Hamish said. “I was but momentarily out the door.”
“Really? Where to?”
“Vermont. Remember? The green drake hatch.”
“Yes. That funny little fly with a name like a duck’s.”
“Precisely.”
“I thought you’d be relieved to hear that Reggie Chang is going to shoot those photos for the book after all.”
“That’s grand news. I’m very relieved, indeed. What did it take?— no, forget I asked. I’m just glad to hear we’re on track again. Bully and hip hip hooray and all that.”
“So, you’re going up to the country, are you?”
“I am. Did you care to join me?”
“As a matter of fact, I was thinking about it.”
“Really?” he sounded very surprised. “Think no more before you change your mind. Just pack a bag. I’ll come by and get you in an hour.”
“It’s been a hideous week, Harold. A perfect horror.”
“Let’s see if we can make up for it, then, with a rousing Green Mountain adventure. I’ll be along in an hour or so. Be prepared to depart at once.”
“You’re my knight in shining armor.”