Six weeks later — January 2011
On a dreary Wednesday, Alice called Tom at his office.
She said, “I was ready to leave a message, and you’re there. I thought you’d be out developing your next project.”
“Why do that when I could sit here reflecting on my misspent life instead?”
“What do you mean, misspent? Has something bad happened?”
“No, all is well. My apologies. That was a poor attempt at joke making.”
“Good, because I want to ask you a favour. In a moment of stupor, I agreed to give a class from the local high school a tour of the station building, complete with architectural history. It’s Josh Gray’s history class. Mary Ann’s son? And it’s all set up for next Monday at one o’clock, only someone’s called a departmental meeting here for that morning, and it’ll be tight for me to get back up to Oakdale from the city in time. So I wondered if you might be in the neighbourhood and able to fill in, to get started anyway, then I’ll run in late and finish up. What do you say?”
“I’m happy to help, but I wouldn’t know how to begin addressing young people.”
“Oh, come on. If anyone can talk, it’s you. And the whole thing’s supposed to be an hour-long visit, at the most, including walking through the building and a question period, so there’ll be a minimum of lecturing. And I’ll be there as soon as possible after my meeting.”
“Very well. I shall be there. At the station, one o’clock Monday.”
“Thanks, Tom. You’re a peach. Coffee and brownies on me afterwards at the new bakery.”
Alice’s meeting ended late. She made good time out of the city, though, and might have reached Oakdale by one o’clock anyway if road work on the highway hadn’t backed up traffic, and added a half hour to her driving time.
She pulled up at the station building — the new library — at one-twenty. The empty school bus that had transported Josh’s class was parked in front. She walked up to the library door, opened it, and heard, in the echoey space, the sound of Tom’s voice.
“Imagine, if you would, that this building is in the center of a bustling town, filled with grand edifices. Healy’s Hotel, a fine four-storey establishment that features a wraparound veranda, stands across the street. The town hall, an imposing brick building fronted by a columned colonnade that was inspired by no less a monument than the Parthenon in Athens, can be seen at the end of Main Street. Imagine yourself to be one of the Scottish and Irish immigrants arriving here in the late eighteen hundreds, come across the ocean to take a domestic job in the large houses of the prosperous tradesmen who live here, tradesmen who were immigrants themselves only twenty years before.”
Alice slipped inside the door, unnoticed by the group of teenagers standing with their faces turned to Tom. He stood on the second-floor gallery, cutting a dramatic figure in a navy blue suit, blue shirt, blue-green tie. Tara Peterson, the new librarian, stood off to the side. Alice tiptoed over, whispered hi, and asked how Tom was doing.
Tara whispered back. “I’m going to ask Mr. Gagliardi to give tours more often. He’s so articulate, he’s a natural storyteller.”
Alice stepped back, listened some more, and saw how Tom’s gift of the gab had grabbed his audience’s attention, how his theatricality suited the occasion. A born teacher, that’s what he was. Unlike Alice. “I’ll be back,” she said. Tara nodded without taking her eyes off Tom, and Alice went down the hall to the community room.
She spent a blissfully quiet half hour there, reading an archeological journal she’d carried around for a week in her briefcase, and re-entered the main space just before two, in time to catch a teacher announcing that the student who organized the field trip had something to say to Mr. Gagliardi.
“On behalf of the class,” Josh said, “I’d like to thank you for giving us a tour of the building, and for telling us so many interesting things about it.” A few people clapped and whistled. “And I’d like to thank Alice — Ms. Maeda — for arranging the tour, even though she isn’t here right now.”
“Here I am,” Alice called out. Everyone turned and looked at her and she said, “Thank you all for coming,” and the round of thanks continued until the kids had filed out through the front door.
In the quiet that followed, Alice said to Tom, “I hear you were mesmerizing. Sorry I was late, I got stuck in traffic. Did you miss me?”
“Yes, I did,” Tom said. He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. “But this was an edifying experience. Most edifying.”
“Ready for that brownie and coffee?”
Tom and Alice sat in the wrought-iron café chairs that furnished the new bakery and sipped their coffees. “Pinch hitting for me today is not the only thing I have to thank you for,” Alice said.
“What else could there be?”
“Remember your idea that I take an au pair to Italy?”
“You said you didn’t have one.”
“I don’t, but I’ve arranged to take along my sometimes babysitter, a girl named Melina Pappas. I’m not the only person on the team who has a young child, so Melina’s going to run a small combination day camp and daycare over there, the parents will pitch in to pay her, and that way she gets to see the world and earn money, and I get to go on a dream dig without leaving Lavinia.”
“How fortuitous.”
“Try to sound like you care when you say that.”
“I’m sorry. I envision you happy and fulfilled in Tuscany, while I, the stooped middle-aged man, trudge from meeting to construction site.”
“That’s crazy. You have excellent posture.”
“I’ll be the upright middle-aged man trudging around construction sites, then.”
“What’s all this about trudging? You’re going to make a mid-life career change and become a teacher.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Didn’t you know? I’m psychic.”
Mary Ann ran into Sam at the park in the middle of the afternoon. Not her usual dog-walking time, but she’d taken a day off work to deal with her increasingly complicated personal life, and had missed the morning stroll, making divorce-related calls.
She waved at Sam from the park entrance, and walked across the baseball field to meet him. “Hi there. Have you been avoiding me?”
Sam reached down to pat Honey. “Maybe. I don’t know what to say to you. I’m afraid I was relieved when I got your email saying the dinner club was disbanded.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t bite. You made your position clear about your marriage, and I respect that.”
“Thank you.” A half smile. “I still feel awkward.”
“I’ve seen Hallie picking the girls up at school a few times, and she hasn’t avoided me. You didn’t tell her?”
“No.”
“Good. I didn’t tell Bob, either. Though we are getting a divorce.”
Sam paled. “You are?”
“Nothing to do with you — it’s been coming for a while. Though you know what was odd?”
“What?”
“That no one seems to have blabbed around town that you and I were pawing each other at Chuck’s that night.”
“I’ve worried about that, too. About the news getting back to Hallie.”
“I guess, when you think about it, the only people there who knew us were not from Oakdale, they were outsiders. Except Alice. And she wouldn’t talk.”
Sam said, “I wanted to ask you something about Alice. I was pretty drunk that night —”
“Though functioning quite well for someone under the influence.”
“— and I don’t necessarily remember everything that happened —”
“I do.”
“Mary Ann.”
“Sorry.”
“I was going to say that I had a vague recollection of you and Alice talking about reading each other’s minds. About real telepathy, I mean. Did that happen, or did I hallucinate it?”
Mary Ann whistled for Honey. “The only thing I can think of that we might have said was ‘great minds think alike’ — it’s kind of the motto of our friendship.”
“Do you two think alike?”
“Sometimes.”
“Maybe that was it.” He didn’t sound too sure.
Mary Ann produced a ball from her pocket, showed it to an excited Honey, used her tennis arm to throw it far and high across the field. “So what’s happening with that food shop idea you had?”