The Body in the Gazebo

Chapter 2





“No, Pix, you will not need these.” Faith plucked a pair of extremely worn sneakers from her friend’s hands.

“They’re in case I get a chance to go bird-watching in a marshy area. My other sneakers are too good.”

Having packed the other sneakers herself, Faith would have employed another description. She’d gingerly wrapped them in tissue to keep them away from Pix’s mostly new apparel and accessories.

“There are stores in South Carolina. If you go wading in any marshes”—Faith shuddered slightly at the thought—“you can make the ones already packed your ‘marshy’ sneaks and buy new ones to wear other places.”

Pix looked at the two suitcases, filled to the brim, and ran her hand through her hair, a gesture she had been repeating frequently since Faith arrived to help her finish getting ready for the trip South. Her thick, short locks now resembled a pot scrubber.

“I really don’t think I need to bring this much stuff. I’m sure I can get away with one suitcase. Sam is.”

“Sam is staying less than a week and men can get away with less—nobody notices that they’re wearing the same pants, and a navy sports jacket is all he needs for dinner so long as he brings a few different ties. Plus, he’ll be on the golf course with Becca’s father most of the time.”

“It’s very expensive to check bags these days.” Pix’s mouth curved down.

Faith repressed a sigh. “Samantha has checked all three of you in online, so you saved some money—and, in any case, it’s nonrefundable.”

That did it and Pix glanced about the room looking for something else to tuck in now that the money had been spent: her good bedside reading lamp? Some of the forest of framed family photos that covered every flat surface? An afghan?

Meanwhile, Faith was zipping the cases shut. Even though Pix was frugal—and generous—it wasn’t the baggage fee that was upsetting her. It was leaving Ursula, hence Faith’s inward sigh. She knew how Pix was feeling, how torn her friend was, and wished the timing for the trip had been earlier or later.

“As soon as the cab leaves, I’ll head over to your mother’s. I promised her I would wait to see you all off.”

As Faith said that, she wondered why Ursula had been so emphatic that Faith witness Pix’s departure. Did she think Pix would cancel at the last minute?

“And you’ve promised me that you’ll call instantly if you think I should come home,” Pix said. “Though she was looking better last night when I went to say good-bye.”

“It’s not going to happen; you’re not going to have to come back, but you know I’d call you. And yes, when I saw her yesterday I thought she looked good and so did Tom. He stopped in at noon. He said he particularly noticed she wasn’t as pale as when he’d last visited. She was quite cheerful—telling him that she planned to wear the same dress for Mark’s wedding that she’d worn for yours.”

Pix laughed. “We were married in December, so I’m not sure how appropriate garnet satin is for June. She can still fit into it is the point she’s not so subtly making. My mother does have a streak of vanity.”

“And with ample reason. She’s beautiful still, but from the pictures, I can see she was a knockout when she was younger,” Faith said. “Now, Ms. Mother-of-the Groom, you’d better get going. Look in that pocketbook of yours once more and be sure you don’t have anything that airport security could mistake for a weapon—your Hiker Swiss Army knife, for example.”

Sam had given it to Pix on their last anniversary and it had everything save the keg that a Saint Bernard carried. While Faith’s notion of anniversary gifts ran more to things with carats, it had been exactly what Pix wanted and she toted it everywhere.

“It’s in my suitcase.”

Samantha came running into the room.

“The cab is here and Dad’s already outside. Go to the bathroom and I’ll tell them you’re on the way!”

“I thought I was the mother,” Pix said, heading for the toilet nevertheless.

Faith and Samantha exchanged glances and a hug.

“You’ll have a wonderful time. And everything here will be fine,” Faith said.

“I know. Becca’s great. I’ve always wanted a sister and, even though she has two of her own, she’s made me feel like one more already.”

Pix emerged and grabbed her suitcases. She’d obviously glanced in the mirror and her hair was back to normal, but she’d forgotten lipstick. Faith decided now was not the time for makeup advice.

“Where are your bags?” Pix asked her daughter.

“In the cab, and let me take one of these. We have plenty of time, Mom, don’t worry.”

“Again, it’s too early for role reversal. You’ve got a few more years to go.” Pix had recently read an article about this female child/parent phenomenon and told Faith to be ready when Amy hit her twenties. The good news was that with such dutiful daughters, they would both have someone to do things like cut their toenails when they hit their twilight years.

“And I’m not worried, just being practical. There could be traffic on the Mass Pike.” With that she squared her shoulders and set off down the hallway.

Soon Faith was standing in the driveway watching per Ursula’s instruction. The cab turned out of sight onto Main Street and she ducked through the opening in the boxwood hedge shared by the Millers and the Fairchilds. Over the years, the space had been widened by numerous crossings between the two yards. She went straight to the garage. Tom was doing parent duty at the kids’ soccer games, so Faith got in her car and drove the short distance to Ursula Rowe’s.

A story. A long story, Ursula had said. She could hardly wait.

Ursula was out of bed and in her chaise, tucked under a duvet. Before she left, Dora had brought a glass of some sort of smoothie that she set on a small table, admonishing Ursula to finish “every last drop.”

“It’s my special protein shake,” she’d told Faith. “She loves them.”

Ursula had made a face, but as soon as the nurse was gone, she took a sip.

“If this is what it takes to get me up and around, I’d be a fool not to do it—however loathsome it tastes. I think Dora’s secret ingredient is chalk.”

Ursula took another swallow.

“I’m sure it will work Dora’s magic,” Faith said. “Let me get your water, so you can sip some after you finish. It might help.”

Faith got the carafe and glass from the nightstand next to Ursula’s bed. The preamble was continuing. Ursula was apparently waiting to start her story until after she’d finished the drink.

“Samantha wants me to get one of those cell phones. As if I needed one! There’s a perfectly good phone in the hallway. She says she’d like to be able to talk to me when I’m in bed.”

It was a good idea, Faith thought—and not just to talk to Samantha. Ursula had reluctantly given up her dial phones upstairs and down for touch-tones, but neither landline was a portable.

“I think the Millers have a family plan where they can add you as another number. It wouldn’t be expensive,” Faith commented, correctly guessing that Ursula was not only concerned with the newness of the technology, but the cost. While Faith knew Ursula was “comfortable,” which in Aleford parlance meant many pennies both earned and saved, she also knew Ursula did not like to spend those pennies except on things like presents for her grandchildren and a number of charitable institutions. Some of Ursula’s clothing, especially outerwear, had belonged to her mother: “Perfectly good tweed. It will last until I’m gone and then some.” Frugal—and generous—just like her daughter.

Soon Ursula had drunk “every last drop” and taken several sips of water. She started in immediately.

“I was born in Boston, as you probably know. Not at home, but at the old Boston Lying-in Hospital. My Lyman grandmother was apparently shocked. She was a bit of a snob, perhaps more than a bit, and thought it rather common not to have the doctor come to you in the sanctity of one’s own boudoir. Thank goodness my parents had more sense. Apparently I gave my mother a rather difficult time and there were no more babies after me.

“My father was in business and we lived on Mt. Vernon Street on the South Slope of Beacon Hill—the only side, again Grandmother Lyman’s opinion. Sundays we walked up and over the Hill, past the State House with its big golden dome, to church at King’s Chapel. Boston has changed enormously since I was a girl, but not that walk, I fancy. The rest of the town is barely recognizable to me today. In my early years, there was no skyline. Just one skyscraper—the Customs House Tower. You can barely make it out now, so many buildings have risen up around it, and we certainly never imagined that anything as tall as the new John Hancock building could exist except in the imagination. Father’s office was down the street from the Customs House. Peregrine falcons nested in the tower—and still do. I imagine they find it more aesthetic than some of the other buildings nearby. Father always grumbled about the clock on the tower—it never kept accurate time. This was the sort of thing that mattered to him, and his associates, I dare say. The area was, and is, Boston’s financial district, convenient to the wharves, although the old buildings are expensive hotels and condominiums today, not a bit like the places where we’d go watch the ships dock. Father would sometimes take me with him when he went in on a Saturday and we’d go down to the harbor after he’d finished whatever it was he had to do.

“He used to joke that if the wind was right, we could smell molasses. I’m sure you’ve heard about the terrible Molasses Flood in 1919. The tank where it was stored exploded and killed more than twenty people. Over two million gallons spilled out in a wave that was over thirty-five feet high. Father always mentioned the statistics. Ten years later—the story I’ll get to eventually starts in the summer of 1929—people would still claim some of the downtown alleys got sticky when it was hot, and perhaps it was the power of suggestion, but I did think I could smell it on those long-ago walks.

“Father was always so well turned out. Not dapper, never that. I could tell the change of season by his hats—homburgs turned into straw boaters with broad black bands in the late spring and summer. Top hats for evenings out. His shoes came from London. I believe a man actually came to the house to show him the styles and measure his feet. He had a gold watch that his father had given him for not drinking or smoking until he was eighteen, not that he did much of either afterward. One of my first memories is of listening to the watch tick at the end of its long, gold fob.

“Mother didn’t work, of course. Women of her class didn’t then. But she was very busy running the household. Unlike many of her peers, she had been an ardent suffragist, although I’m not sure my father was altogether happy about it. It’s odd to think that I was born before women could vote. Although Mother could never have been described as a radical, she raised me to believe that men and women were equal and entitled to the same rights. She did a great deal of charity work and was an active member of the Fragment Society, the oldest continuous sewing circle in Boston. It was started during the War of 1812. Pix and I are members, too—although what we do is quite different from Mother’s day. Mother might not have been able to do more than boil water for tea, but she did beautiful handwork, and I’m sure the indigent new mothers who received what she made for their layettes were thrilled.

“She had been a well-known beauty in her time and had a delicious sense of humor. She always smelled of lilies of the valley. It was the only scent she used. The only cosmetic. My father wouldn’t have stood for rouge or even rice powder. I don’t think she much cared. She was very interested in what she wore, though. Father had given her a pearl collar similar to Queen Mary’s for a wedding gift and the pearls became Mother’s signature jewelry, too.”

Ursula paused before taking up the thread again.

“You’re sitting here so patiently and I know you’re wondering where I’m going with this, but I promise you, it’s going somewhere. My story has a number of pieces, which will come together at the end. Just now with this piece, I’m trying to give you a sense of what it was like in Boston—for my parents and for me. They grew up in another century and the changes the twentieth brought were rapid and must have been bewildering to them at times. Especially the changes during the 1920s. I’ve often thought this was the beginning of the notion of a generation gap. Young people in the Jazz Age were so very different from the kinds of young people their parents had been in what was still the Victorian Age. Maybe it’s a little like Samantha and her cell phone—all this new technology. We had ‘talkies’ and Lucky Lindy flying across the Atlantic. Pix thinks Samantha’s frocks belong in the rag pile and the flappers’ mothers must have thought the same way. Despite everything that was going on around me, though, as a little girl, my day-to-day life wasn’t so far removed from that of my mother’s growing up.

“We skated on the Frog Pond on the Boston Common in the winter, and the arrival of the swan boats in the Public Garden was the first sign of spring for us, along with snow drops in Louisburg Square. My brother and his friends sculled on the Charles River straight through until late autumn when the water started to freeze.”

Ursula looked straight at Faith.

“Pix has never mentioned an uncle, has she?”

Faith shook her head. Ursula drank some water and leaned back again on the large down European square pillows Dora had arranged for her patient’s comfort.

“My brother Theodore. He was always called ‘Theo.’ ”

“Come on, Sis. All you have to do is slip downstairs once the mater and pater are asleep and unlock the side door. I’ll lock it up again. Don’t worry. I’m not about to risk the family plate.”



Ursula Lyman cocked her head to one side and pretended to think. She knew—and Theo knew—that she’d do anything her adored big brother asked.



“Once the break is over and I’m back on campus, I won’t have this kind of bother.”



“Just the regular kind of bother—your studies.” Ursula tried to look stern. Theo’s first-semester grades at Harvard hadn’t even been gentlemen’s Cs. Their father had threatened to cut off his son’s allowance if they didn’t improve markedly. He’d stopped short of demanding that Theo move home. Leaving Westmorly Court, one of Harvard’s “Gold Coast” houses on Mount Auburn Street, which Theo had opted for over the more plebian, and shabbier, freshman housing in the Yard, would make Theo’s failings too public.



“I’ve been burning the midnight oil, don’t you worry your pretty little head. A fellow has to have some fun, you know. So, what do you say—will you do it?”



Ursula nodded. Theo lifted his sister up and swung her around. She had been as much a surprise to him nine years ago as he imagined she must have been to their parents.



“But do be careful—and good, Theo, won’t you?”



“I’m always good and careful,” he said, laughing.



Theo set his sister down and looked in the tall pier glass mirror at the end of the broad front hallway where they’d been standing. Their reflection could have been a painting by Sargent—Master Theodore Speedwell Lyman and sister, Ursula Rose. Theo’s hair was carefully parted in the middle and slicked down; he was wearing evening clothes. To please his parents, he was dining at their Cabot cousin’s home on Beacon Street before making an appearance at one of the many debutante balls to which he and his very eligible friends were continually invited. But that dinner and the ball would merely mark the start of his evening. Later he and some of his chums were treating a few of the beauties from the Old Howard to a postshow supper at Locke-Ober—upstairs in a private dining room, the only part of the restaurant where women were allowed. He’d ordered Lobster Savannah, the house specialty, and they’d have to bring in their own magnums of champagne thanks to Prohibition—damn it all. Of course the ladies would be wearing considerably more than they would have been earlier. He hoped those dreary guardians of the public morality from the Watch and Ward Society wouldn’t have stopped by to interrupt the show, which would push supper up later. The irony was that some of last season’s debs, who were officially launched and therefore granted more leeway now, would be wearing outfits at the ball that were almost as revealing as the strippers’. He chuckled to himself and pulled a Butterfinger candy bar—her favorite—from his pocket for his sister.



Ursula was studying herself in the mirror. She was clad in the blue serge skirt, black lisle stockings, and long middy blouse she’d worn to school. Winsor had moved to the Longwood area of Boston some ten years ago and Mrs. Lyman regularly complained about the distance. “When I was a student, it was so convenient. Right here on the Hill. We could walk.”



Ursula rather liked the commute. She wasn’t allowed to explore Boston on her own yet, but she yearned for the day when she could go to the opposite side of the Hill to the West End and perhaps even down to Scollay Square. She was pretty sure that was where her brother would be for at least part of the evening. She’d seen the giant two-hundred-pound steaming teakettle that hung above the Oriental Tea Company not far from the Square down Tremont Street several blocks away from King’s Chapel, but it was the limit permissible in that tantalizing direction. She wasn’t interested in what her brother sought in Scollay Square. What she wanted to explore were the bookshops on nearby Corn Hill. But her world was carefully circumscribed by the Common and the Public Garden with occasional trips to the Boston Public Library in Copley Square, the Museum of Fine Arts in the Fenway, or Symphony Hall.



Each morning Mr. Lyman’s chauffeur returned from dropping his employer off at his offices to drive his employer’s daughter to school. While Ursula thought taking the subway would be great fun, she found plenty to entertain herself looking out the window of the big Packard.



“I wish Mother would let me bob my hair,” she complained, turning away from the mirror and eagerly accepting her brother’s proffered treat.



Theo yanked one of her braids. “Don’t be in a hurry to grow up, squirt. It’s not all that it’s cracked up to be.”



Although the evening promised to be great fun—Charlie Winthrop was picking him up after dinner in the Stutz Torpedo he’d just bought, plus Charlie always had the best hooch—Theo had a moment’s longing for the days when he was a schoolboy at Milton, coming home on weekends with nothing much to worry about except beating Groton’s football team. He hadn’t made Harvard’s team, but it would have been rare for a frosh. He missed playing, which was maybe why he was making up for it by all this other playing. Ursula was holding out the white silk scarf he’d dropped when he’d put on his overcoat. Her serious little face was crinkled in a smile. He promised himself he’d buckle down and give up the late nights at Sanborn’s Billiards and Tobacco Parlor, hit the books, and make everyone proud—especially the girl standing in front of him.



“You’re a brick,” he told her, and with a wave, walked out into the dusk.



Faith drove slowly through the streets of Aleford to the outskirts of town where her catering kitchen was located. Her thoughts were so firmly fixed on the early twentieth century that she was startled when a Toyota Prius glided by. The car would have seemed like something from a science fiction novel in 1929. Nineteen twenty-nine. That’s when Ursula had said her story started, although so far she’d been describing the years prior, her childhood, and Faith had been captivated by the picture of this bygone era drawn by someone who had lived it. Both Tom’s and Faith’s parents were younger than Ursula. And of those closer to her in age who would have remembered that significant year, only Faith’s paternal grandmother was still alive—Olive Sibley. She lived in New Jersey with her daughter, Faith’s aunt Chat, short for Charity. Sibley women had been named Faith, Hope, and Charity since Noah. Faith’s parents had stopped with Hope. Whether this was due to an aversion to the third name on the part of Jane, Faith’s mother, or the decision that two children were enough, Faith did not know. However, she did know that no one on the branches of the family tree had ever gone beyond Charity. What would it have been? Chastity, no doubt.

Listening to Ursula today, Faith regretted not having spent more time asking her grandmother about her childhood—or asking her mother and father about theirs. She resolved to take a recorder with her on her next trip to the city. And yes, Jersey—to Aunt Chat’s. Charity Sibley had made a name for herself—and a great deal of money—in advertising. The firm she founded was a household name, as were the products in her account portfolio. Her colleagues and friends were astounded when she sold the business, retired early, and purchased a small estate in Mendham, on the wrong side of the Hudson. She had been contentedly raising miniature horses and prize dahlias ever since. The fabulous parties she’d hosted at her San Remo apartment in one of the towers overlooking Central Park continued in the new locale. New Yorkers, for whom the Garden State was a less likely destination than Mars, were soon happily crossing the George Washington Bridge.

The big question, Faith thought as she pulled up to work, was why Pix—who had revealed details of her life ranging from the name of her kindergarten class pet (Eleanor, a guinea pig) to where and when she and Sam first did “it”—had never mentioned having an uncle. Theo. It was a lovely, old-fashioned nickname. There were several possible answers to this question: He was the despised black sheep of the family, although Ursula’s description of him so far had been very affectionate; he died well before Pix was born; or finally, Pix didn’t know of his existence. Was this last what Ursula didn’t want Faith to reveal? That Ursula had a brother? In the course of her story were other siblings going to emerge? Up until now, Faith had assumed Ursula was an only child. She’d indicated that there weren’t any more babies after her birth, but what about older siblings besides Theo?

She’d reached the catering kitchen. Faith unlocked the door, hung up her coat, and took out some sweet butter from the refrigerator and flour from the walk-in pantry. Ursula clearly could not talk for long without tiring and Faith had left her dozing. It meant she now had time to prepare some much-needed puff pastry, feuilletage, for the freezer. Feuilletage, from the French for “leaf,” was tricky and involved folding, rolling, and folding the buttery dough over itself again multiple times in order to get those ethereal, leaf-thin layers that would literally melt in your mouth. It was a task she had always loved—something about the repetitive motion was soothing. Not that anything particular was bothering her at the moment. She quickly knocked wood, tapping the counter with her wide rolling pin. Sure, Amy was dealing with a small group of mean girls in her grade, but she said she had only told her mother to show how well she and her friends were handling them. “We just laugh like crazy at everything they say and Sarah says stuff like, ‘Aren’t they hysterical,’ and they get mad and go to the other side of the playground.” It was a good strategy, but Faith, remembering some of the recent tragic outcomes of bullying, had called both the school principal and Amy’s teacher, asking each to keep an eye on the situation.

After a very rough start in middle school, Ben had discovered that he loved English—although it might have something to do with the very young and very pretty student teacher who had recently arrived. He was currently turning out short stories about vegetarian vampires for his writing assignments. They were actually pretty funny, although that might not be Ben’s intent. And Tom, thank goodness, was his hale and hearty self again. So, knock wood, no worries. Well, there was the economy and the fact that Faith’s business was off by over half. In addition, clients for the events they were catering were substituting things on sticks and cheese plates for passed mini beef Wellington and lobster spring rolls; opting for wine and beer without the exotic cocktails that had formerly been all the rage.

Some of the puff pastry in front of her was for an event Have Faith was catering for a yacht club on the North Shore. The Tiller Club had an annual game dinner in the fall and an old-fashioned clambake in the summer, both of which Faith had catered for years. The chairman had called Faith late last summer and told her there would be only one dinner this year and it would be a “Spring Fling” in late March. Faith thought he was being rather optimistic with the name—not the “Fling” part; the “Tillies,” as the men called themselves, were nautical party animals, but March didn’t suggest spring to her. However, just this week the plow guy had removed those long sticks he used to avoid running off the Fairchild’s driveway during a heavy snowfall. This was a more accurate harbinger of the season than the poor crocuses that struggled to bloom, so the Tillies had been right.

Their first course would be a champignon Napoléon—delicious, but plain old button mushrooms sautéed in butter with a bit of cream and sherry added at the end, not the medley of wild (expensive) mushrooms she normally used. And the chairman had opted for chicken roulade, not prime rib, as Faith had first suggested, knowing from the game dinners the amount of red meat they gleefully scarfed down.

Two things wouldn’t change on the menu. The dessert—boys at heart, they always wanted chocolate layer cake—and plenty of dinner rolls served throughout the meal, since tossing them, and rolled-up napkins, at one another made up much of the evening’s entertainment. The club supplied the booze and, recession or no, Faith was sure it would flow as amply as it had in other years. One had to maintain standards, after all. The dinner was next Friday and she made a mental note to remind Scott and Tricia Phelan, who worked as bartender and server at most of her events. Scott’s day job was at an auto body shop in nearby Byford, and Trish was working as an occasional apprentice for Faith, hoping to gain enough skill to find a job in a restaurant kitchen, bringing in some much-needed additional income. Their two kids were both in school full-time now and Faith wished she could put Trish on salary. Maybe in a few months.

Faith knew business would pick up. History repeated itself. There had been a big slump just before she left Manhattan for Aleford, marriage, and motherhood. There had been slumps here in Aleford. For now she could weather the storm without a bailout. Have Faith was still running the café at the Ganley, a local art museum, and it provided a nice, steady income. Before she took the job, Faith had checked out the fare offered by the previous purveyor. The lettuce in her salad was black and slimy; the canned tuna in the tuna salad reminiscent of the botulism-loaded cans from the Spanish-American War. The brownies looked like cow chips. The café attracted more visitors to the museum, once word got out that food poisoning was no longer a risk.

Lost in thought and pastry, Faith was startled when the door opened. It was Niki Constantine, Faith’s longtime assistant. A year and a half ago Niki had married Phillip Theodopoulos in an extravaganza that made My Big Fat Greek Wedding look like an elopement. Niki had grown up in nearby Watertown, during which time her mother had made her expectations clear to her only daughter. College, okay, but an engagement ring from a nice Greek boy by graduation; a June wedding; first grandchild a year later: “We don’t want people counting on their fingers.” Niki had rebelled, starting with culinary school instead of Mount Ida College, and then refusing to date any male remotely Greek in heritage, instead parading boyfriends who ranged from Lowell bikers to a Buddhist old enough to be her father, maybe grandfather. And then despite her best intentions, she had fallen hard for the man of her mother’s dreams—Yale undergrad, Harvard MBA, handsome, family oriented (he had pictures of his parents, sibs, and their kids in his wallet), plus he was Greek. First generation. Throughout, Faith had watched from the sidelines, listening to Niki’s descriptions and laughing. In addition to being the best assistant she could have wished for, especially when it came to desserts, Niki was also the funniest friend Faith had.

Niki wasn’t smiling today.

“I thought you and Phil were driving down to see his parents in Hartford.”

Just as Niki had found herself drawn inexorably into the vortex that was her mother’s idea of a real wedding—Niki’s gown had had so many crinolines she’d told Faith she felt like one of those dolls her aunt Dimitra crocheted skirts for to hide the toilet paper roll—she’d also been pulled into Phil’s family, although she found that she enjoyed being an aunt to his numerous nephews and nieces. The fact that his mother made the best baklava in the world and always for Niki didn’t hurt, either.

“Phil needed to go golfing—and I wasn’t in the mood to read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie forty times in a row.”

“Sit down, and as soon as I finish this, I’ll give you a cookie. You look tired. Out late clubbing? Make some coffee. I wouldn’t mind a cup.”

Niki had refused to give up her lifestyle as a freewheeling twenty-seven-year-old and Phil was happy to go along.

When Niki didn’t respond—unheard of—and instead slumped into a chair without removing her jacket, Faith hastily wrapped the packets of dough, crossed the room to the freezer, and set them inside. With all that butter, they had to go in immediately. She stood in front of her friend and said, “How about I make the coffee and you tell me what’s going on.”

Niki sat up a little straighter.

“No coffee.”

Faith began to get very worried. Niki loved coffee, delightedly bringing ever more unusual blends to Faith’s attention—the latest was Malabar Monsooned from India, its special taste indeed acquired from exposure to monsoons. Niki wasn’t just a connoisseur. The stuff ran in her veins, and she joked that one of her ancestors’ ships must have gone radically off course, ending up in Scandinavia instead of Macedonia.

Pulling a chair close to Niki’s, Faith sat down and took Niki’s hand.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she said quietly.

“Oh Faith,” Niki said, bursting into tears. “I’m pregnant!”

“But that’s wonderful!”

Niki had been regaling Faith and Pix for months with the various folk remedies her mother and aunts had advised to speed conception. Niki had told them she was sure plain old trying would eventually work, and meanwhile it wasn’t “trying” at all, but more fun than should be legal—her words.

Faith added, “This is the news you’ve been waiting for . . .” before her voice trailed off. The woman sobbing in front of her wasn’t shedding tears of joy. There must be something wrong with the baby. But it was so soon. She couldn’t be far along. Faith would have noticed and Niki wouldn’t have been able to keep it to herself, although she had told both Faith and Pix that no one was to tell Mrs. Constantine until Niki was at least eight months along. Niki didn’t want to be wrapped in cotton wool and subjected to endless advice about what to eat, what not to look at—her mother had already advised against any movie scarier than The Sound of Music lest it affect her future grandchild’s psyche.

“Is it the baby? Did they find something—”

Niki interrupted, rubbing her eyes with her hands in what looked like an angry gesture.

“No, I’m sure nothing’s wrong. I haven’t been to the doctor. Just did the test at home because I missed my period—and I’m never late. But you know me. Healthy as a horse. Phil, too, so the baby should be doing fine. That’s not it.”

She started to cry again. Faith got a box of tissues from under the counter. The only other time she could remember seeing Niki in tears was when the Constantines’ dog died, a chocolate Lab they’d had all Niki’s life. She swore that his coat was what inspired her to turn to truffles and the other sweets she loved to create.

Suddenly what Niki had said when she arrived came back to Faith, “Phil needed to go golfing.” The ground was still hard and it was cold. Phil enjoyed the occasional round, but he wasn’t a fanatic. Why did he “need” to golf today? In his corporate world, there was only one reason Faith could think of—networking. Big-time.

“Is something going on at work for Phil?”

Niki blew her nose.

“Just that he lost his job yesterday.”

“Damn!”

There wasn’t anything else to say. Faith put her arms around Niki. She was crying harder. This should have been one of the happiest days of her life. Phil had been steadily working his way up the ladder, but he’d only been with this firm for three years. There were a lot of occupied rungs above his.

Niki took another tissue and wiped her eyes.

“Yup. Handed him a carton and took back the key to the men’s room. He started dialing as soon as he walked out into Post Office Square, and the only nibble he’s gotten is this golf game with someone who knows someone who was at Yale with him.”

The days when job hunting consisted of scanning the want ads in the Boston Globe and mailing out résumés were totally foreign to Phil and Niki’s generation. Now it was all about networking, the golf kind, and the Internet kind.

“He’s lined up interviews with some headhunters. The most immediate problem is his parachute. It wasn’t golden. More like cheesecloth. A month’s pay and three months’ health insurance.”

There it was. Health insurance, the policy had covered Niki, too, and now it was good for only three more months.

“But surely he’ll find something before it runs out.”

Niki shook her head. “He has friends who have been out of work for much longer than that. We have some savings and he can cash in his 401(k) . . .”

“Don’t even think about it. I’ll cover you and Phil, as an employee spouse, here,” Faith said.

“You have no idea how much money that’s going to cost you, especially with my preexisting condition.”

“Expecting a baby isn’t like cancer or heart disease. I’ll talk to Ralph and we’ll get it ready to go immediately in case you need it. And that’s final.” Faith could see that Niki was getting ready to argue some more. On Monday morning she’d call Ralph, her insurance agent, who handled Have Faith’s business coverage, and tell him what was going on.

“Coffee now? I’ve got decaf beans,” Faith offered, mindful of avoiding caffeine during pregnancy.

“I don’t think so,” Niki said, graphically gesturing—finger pointed down her throat. “That’s how I first knew. About a week ago the smell started making me want to barf. I haven’t actually been losing lunch, but feel like it a lot. Weird.” Niki seemed to be considering the situation.

“Okay, how about a glass of milk and some cookies, then?”

Niki’s responses—verbal and physical—meant she was edging back toward her normal self and Faith was relieved. Phil would find a job in due course and meanwhile Niki could enjoy her pregnancy, although there was an oxymoron in there someplace if Faith’s experiences were anything to go by. Mostly she recalled having to pee constantly and panicking when she wasn’t near a bathroom. Pix had told her it was one of the main reasons for joining a club in Boston. You could go downtown when pregnant without fear.

“And once little beanbag or whatever nauseatingly cute name you guys come up with for him or her in utero arrives, we’re all set up here for you to bring the baby to work,” Faith said.

When she had purchased Yankee Doodle Dandy Dining, the catering firm that had previously occupied the space, she had completely remodeled the facility. During the process, she created an area where her kids could safely play from the time they were toddlers well into elementary school. Amy still liked to come hang out when her busy schedule permitted it.

“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” Niki said, “but not having to pay for day care will save a lot. It also gives me an excuse to keep my mother from taking over.”

Niki’s mother indeed was a force of nature, but Faith liked and admired her, even while she understood how hard it was for Niki to have such a controlling individual hovering over her life. “Smother Love” might have been coined for Mrs. Constantine. Which was why Faith doubted Niki could keep her condition secret. However, Niki’s brother was engaged and this could possibly deflect attention from Niki for a while, as his fiancée was only half Greek and her future mother-in-law was busy teaching her how to make all her future husband’s favorite dishes. The situation had caused Niki to mention recently that there really were gods up there on Mount Olympus.

“Phil must be over the moon,” Faith said, relaxing into their usual companionable mode.

Niki dipped her molasses sugar cookie into her milk and took a bite.

“I haven’t told him yet,” she mumbled.

The mode switched back.

“You haven’t told him! Niki, eventually he’s going to notice the patter of little feet.”

“I know, I know. The stick only turned blue yesterday, and yes, I was really, really happy. Then he called with his news, and by the time he got home, I’d decided this was not the time to lay it on the guy that he’d better be out there hustling up some bread because there was going to be an extra place at the table for a bunch of years. Besides, I have a job, which brings me to the reason I came by. Oh hell, I came to tell you, you know that, but I also came to ask you a favor.”

“Anything,” Faith said.

“First, I don’t want you to tell anyone I’m pregnant.”

“Not even Pix?”

“Especially not Pix.”

Ursula and now Niki. What was up with this? Poor Pix. Life was getting even stranger than usual.

“You know she can’t keep a secret. The first time she saw Phil, she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye, would get all red, and he’d know something was going on.”

“Sweetie! Pix is away for almost two more weeks. You can’t keep this from him that long.”

“I’ll keep it from him as long as I want.” Niki jutted her chin out, all traces of tears gone. “I don’t want him to be distracted. He has enough on his plate without piling on a helping of fatherhood.” Niki seemed to be favoring meal metaphors.

“Okay.” Faith backed off. Niki didn’t need Faith adding to her stress. “Anything else?”

“It’s a biggie. And if you think it will affect the business at all, you have to say so straight-out.”

Faith was mystified. Niki continued. “Could I use the kitchen here when we’re not doing a job? I thought maybe I could set up a dessert-catering Web site to bring in more money. Get Mom to spread the word about my cheesecakes at her bingo nights.”

Niki’s cheesecakes were truly delectable. Poetry even. Besides the traditional New York and strawberry-covered cakes in a variety of sizes, Niki also did praline, Amaretto, chocolate macadamia, and a new to-die-for pomegranate with a raspberry liqueur glaze. She was working on one for spring featuring Madagascar vanilla beans and toasted coconut.

“You didn’t even have to ask—and don’t worry about hurting business. Our customers almost always want full-service catering for dessert buffets—servers and people to clean up. This will be fun. I’ll help.”

“No you won’t. I’ll get Tricia. She wants to learn more about desserts. And of course I’ll use my own ingredients.”

“Look, it will all work out. You know me. I’m not Little Mary Sunshine, but we’ll get through this. And now, just for a little minute, can we shout for joy? You and Phil will be such wonderful parents.”

“You’re going to make me cry again. I’m doing that a lot lately. Better than throwing up, though.”

Faith decided not to tell her that this would in all likelihood start soon. Hair-trigger emotions first, sore nipples, and then morning sickness, which often stretched into the afternoon in Faith’s case. Plus, it seemed she had just recovered when the infant she’d produced started what the books termed with scientific precision “projectile vomiting.”

“I am happy,” Niki said. “Very, very happy.”

“Me, too.” Faith smiled. “How about we call your business ‘Little Mary Cheesecake’?”

“Don’t push it, boss,” Niki said. “I’m more the Suzy Creamcheese type.”

It was close to five o’clock by the time Faith got home and she was surprised to see that Tom’s car was gone. Where could her family be? But there were lights on in the parsonage kitchen. It was a mystery.

Faith went in the back door and found her daughter making chocolate chip cookies.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to turn on the oven until you came home, Mom,” Amy said.

Faith gave her conscientious little girl a hug, praying that she stayed that way, especially during her teen years.

“Where is everybody else? Dad’s car is gone.”

“He had to go to some meeting. He left you a note, and Ben’s doing homework in Dad’s study.”

After a series of incidents last fall, Ben’s computer was now out of his room and in a more public part of the house. Faith and Tom had followed the suggestion of many educators that with this simple act, they could control their child’s behavior without constantly looking over his or her shoulder. Just the presence of an adult helped kids think twice—or more—about their conversations in cyberspace, particularly ones about other kids. You might think you’re chatting to one or two others, but in reality it could be one or two billion, a fact few kids absorbed fully.

What kind of meeting could be held on a Saturday night? Faith wondered. That time was sacrosanct for the clergy who were preparing for a Sunday service. Presumably they were getting in an even holier mood than usual, and perhaps adding a comma or two to the following day’s sermon. In reality there might be ministers who wrote their sermons early in the week, but Faith didn’t know any and her husband was definitely not in that club. Most Saturday nights Tom Fairchild was frantically rewriting what he had decided before was just fine.

His note was written on the dry-erase family bulletin board.

“Sherman Munroe has called an emergency meeting of the vestry. No idea why. Back soon, I hope. Love, Tom.”

Sherman—and don’t ever call him “Sherm”—was one of Faith’s least favorite parishioners. He was a relatively new arrival to Aleford. He’d lived in town for only five years, but as he was fond of saying, “My people started the place.” There were some Munroes in the Old Burial Ground, so they had been around at the time of the town’s incorporation, but as for starting anything, if they had, they hadn’t stuck around to finish—the ones aboveground, that is. One and all had absented themselves until Sherman turned up after retiring from, according to him, a highly lucrative manufacturing business in Pennsylvania. Millicent Revere McKinley, whose frontal lobe was a veritable Rolodex of Alefordiana, conceded that he was descended from “those early Munroes,” her tone suggesting that some other Munroes would have been preferable. She had followed it up with a few tart sentences expressing her opinion about locating businesses not simply out of state, but out of Aleford.

By taking on jobs no one else wanted to do, Sherman soon became a player at First Parish and a thorn in Tom’s side. Everything that had occurred before Mr. Munroe’s arrival had been done “bass ackward”—a phrase Faith particularly despised, along with “connect the dots.” And now that he was on the vestry, things were even worse. Faith speculated about what emergency Sherman had dreamed up. Dissatisfaction with the brand of coffee being used for coffee hour? A reiteration of his ongoing objection to the haphazard way Sherman thought the sexton placed the prayer books and hymnals in the pews?

Faith had been looking forward to telling Tom about her conversation with Ursula and all of Niki’s news. Like Ursula, Niki had recognized that the don’t-tell rule excluded spouses and conceded that Faith would have to let Tom know she was pregnant.

Yet, most of all, Faith was annoyed about the stress this Munroe jerk was causing Tom. She was tempted to call his cell and tell him to come home for dinner. It was bad for him to skip meals. His postpancreatitis care had specifically included this warning. Someone occasionally brought cookies to the vestry meetings, but you couldn’t count on it. And the meeting better not go late. Tom needed his sleep.

Faith was working herself into a very righteous snit when she heard the car pull in. Amy’s cookies were in one oven, giving the house a delicious smell, and Faith had optimistically popped the country ham and potato au gratin made with a Gruyère-laden béchamel sauce in the other. She had broccoli crowns, the stems saved for soup, in a pot ready to steam at the last minute. Ben had set the table—it was his turn—and it looked as if the night would be salvaged.

The moment she saw her husband’s face, she told Amy to go join Ben and read while he worked. Faith would watch the cookies, and dinner might be a while.

She didn’t have to ask what was wrong. The words came rushing from Tom’s mouth like an avalanche, each one pushing the next forward with deadly force.

“The independent audit we authorized has uncovered a shortfall. A large shortfall. Over ten thousand dollars is missing. Missing from the Minister’s Discretionary Fund.”

Faith was having trouble taking it in. She stood for a moment with the casserole she’d removed from the oven in her hands. “The Minister’s Discretionary Fund?”

Tom sat down heavily, still in his coat.

“Yes, the Discretionary Fund.”

Faith knew what it was. She’d just been repeating his words, hoping somehow she had heard him wrong. She hadn’t.

The Minister’s Discretionary Fund. Money that the Reverend Thomas Preston Fairchild alone had access to and for which he was solely accountable.