LITMIR.BIZ

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grimly, dialing the caterer.

      CHAPTER 4

      Cedar Crest is divided into neighborhoods, each with its own distinct character.

      On the outskirts of town, closest to the highway exit, is the ubiquitous commercial strip lined with fast food restaurants, chain hotels, supermarkets, discount stores like Wal-Mart and Target.

      Then there’s Stonebridge campus itself, a forested, self-contained enclave connected by a series of winding paths that meander past brick dormitories and academic buildings, a new sports facility, sprawling athletic fields.

      Adjacent to the campus is a grid of old streets with two-and three-story homes. Once, they were upper-middle-class family residences; today, most are student housing with bikes and furniture on porches, doors and windows perpetually ajar. Most could use a fresh coat of paint, a handyman, and some yard work. Those in best repair display Greek letters beneath the eaves.

      Today’s middle class resides on the opposite end of town, where winding streets like Tamarack Lane reflect architecture from the first half of the twentieth century: primarily Tudor and Arts and Crafts. Here, yards are well kept. Late summer perennials are in bloom, local election signs are already springing up on lawns sprinkled with the season’s first fallen leaves. SUVs and station wagons sit in driveways. There are wooden backyard swing sets and domed curbside mailboxes.

      Both residential areas are dotted with churches, parks, and playgrounds; they’re bridged by the central business district, with Main Street running its length. Stores and restaurants spill onto the perpendicular numbered streets along the way.

      There are no chains here, but plenty of locally owned bars, sub and pizza shops, and coffeehouses that cater to the college crowd. Those—along with a Laundromat, a coffee shop, and shops that sell books and postcards, T-shirts and Stonebridge memorabilia—are clustered on the north end, closest to campus.

      The southern end is home to banks and realtors, cafés and pharmacies, a children’s clothing store, a couple of small markets, a yoga studio.

      Fiona Fitzgerald Public Relations is here, on the ground floor of a turreted mustard-yellow Victorian mansion that’s been converted to office space.

      Brynn makes the fifteen-minute walk over from the bus stop, pushing Jeremy’s collapsible canvas umbrella stroller in the cool September sunshine.

      “Come on, little guy, let’s go visit Auntie Fee,” she says with false cheer, and unstraps Jeremy from his stroller.

      “No!”

      “Yes.”

      “No!” Jeremy squirms in her arms.

      She’s forced to haul him up the wooden front steps, leaving the stroller behind. Well, if anyone wants to steal it, they’re welcome to it. It’s definitely the worse for wear after carting first Caleb, then Jeremy, around town.

      Brynn really should pick up another one at Target before this one gives out altogether. But money is tight this month.

      This month?

      When isn’t it tight?

      Well, it was less tight when they were a two-person household living on two incomes as opposed to a four-person household trying to make it on one.

      She supposes she could always put Jeremy in day care and get some kind of job…

      But she doesn’t want to do that. She wants to stay at home, fully available, the kind of mother she had.

      Except that I’ll live to see my children graduate high school, and college, and get married, and have children of their own…

      She wants to witness the big milestones just as she’s been able to witness the little ones: first steps, first words, first teeth…

      I just want to be their mom. And Garth’s wife. That’s all I really need to be.

      Which is good, because that’s all I am. And I love my life just the way it is…

      There’s just something about being in Fiona’s presence that makes her a little self-conscious about the decidedly domestic path she’s chosen.

      She crosses the porch with a still-protesting Jeremy on her hip, wondering if maybe she should have called first, instead of just barging in here.

      Glancing at her watch, she notes that Fee will most certainly be in the office at this hour. She’s in the office at just about any waking hour—including some hours that the rest of the world may not necessarily count as waking.

      “Shh, Jeremy.”

      Opening one of the tall double entrance doors, Brynn steps into the dim hall that was once a grand foyer. High ceilings, ornate moldings, and a sweeping staircase bear testimony to the building’s past; several closed, placard-bearing doors to its present.

      “It’s dark,” Jeremy informs her in a small voice.

      “I know, it’s okay. See? Here we are.” Opening the door fronted by Fiona’s name, she steps into one-half of the former double parlor. It’s easy to picture the tall, double-hung windows, hardwood floors, and marble fireplace looking exactly the same in the late-1800s. The reception area, like Fee’s adjacent office, is tastefully decorated with nineteenth-century reproduction wallpaper and fabrics, and antique furnishings.

      A skinny blonde looks up from the tall potted fern she’s watering beside one of the two windows.

      “Hi, I’m Brynn, a friend of Fiona’s.”

      “Oh…hi.” The girl looks so uncertain that Brynn knows immediately that her days here are numbered.

      Fee has absolutely no patience for indecision.

      That’s why Sharon, who, during their college years had been the private secretary for the dean at Stonebridge, was the perfect office manager for her. The older woman doesn’t have a wishy-washy bone in her body. If she likes you, you know it on sight. Same thing if she doesn’t like you. Brynn, she always liked, and the feeling is mutual.

      Toying with the watering can, the new girl asks, “You don’t have an appointment…do you?”

      Brynn shakes her head, feeling almost sorry for the girl. She’s painfully skinny and inappropriately dressed in a gauze skirt and thick, flat sandals. Her long forehead and plain, egg-shaped face are unnecessarily accentuated by straight, wispy, straw-colored hair parted in the middle.

      “I need a cup,” Jeremy announces, eyeing the Poland Spring cooler.

      “Is it all right if I get him a drink of water?” Brynn asks.

      Again, the girl is riddled with incertitude.

      Brynn shifts Jeremy to her other hip and fills a paper cup anyway.

      He takes a big gulp, squirms, and demands, “I want to get down.”

      “No, Mommy’s going to hold you,” she tells him firmly, acutely aware of the stained glass lamp and porcelain bowl of potpourri on a nearby table.

      I shouldn’t have brought him, she realizes, and on the heels of that thought, but I had no choice.

      What she wouldn’t give to have a doting grandma nearby, as most of her friends do. But her father and stepmother are a world away in every sense, and Garth’s parents are retired in Florida. For Brynn, getting out of the house without one or both the kids is an impossible weekday challenge.

      She hands her son the empty paper cup to play with and decides she’d better get down to business before Jeremy’s limited patience runs its course.

      “You must be Fiona’s new assistant,” she tells the girl.

      “That’s right.”

      “What was your name again?” Brynn prods, fully aware that she never said.

      She isn’t rude…just young. And clueless.

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