Tracy Kelleher – The Company You Keep (страница 5)

“Reunions? But they’re not until June. If it’s about giving Noreen plenty of notice that I’ll be staying at the house, you don’t have to worry.” Noreen was her father’s third wife. Mimi’s natural predilection was to despise her stepmothers, but even she had to admit Noreen was pretty decent.

“I’m sure Noreen will appreciate hearing from you, but I repeat, that’s not why I called. Really, Mary Louise. If you’d let me get a word in edgewise, you’d realize that fact.”

Chastised but not humbled, Mimi bit her tongue.

A self-satisfied silence permeated the line. “I wanted to speak to you in regards to my position on the Reunions committee. I’m in charge of organizing the panel discussions.”

Despite his chastisement, Mimi couldn’t help but jump in with a comment. “I thought I made it clear to you and everyone else that I don’t want to talk about what happened in Chechnya.” She hated the fact that her voice trembled.

“Yes, you made that loud and clear when you took an extended leave from the network—though I still believe you should talk to the psychiatrist that Noreen found for you, the specialist in matters…in matters related to your particular circumstance.” Conrad cleared his throat uneasily. “What I had in mind was more directly relevant to the Grantham student experience. Intercollegiate athletics, to be precise.”

“What are you talking about? I haven’t participated in any competitive sports since my senior year.” Mimi was baffled.

“Which was the year you served on a panel at Reunions addressing Title IX and its impact on Grantham’s varsity teams. As I recall, your comments were particularly offensive to certain male members of the audience when you advocated the demotion of the wrestling team to a club sport,” Conrad noted.

“That’s because there was no female equivalent,” Mimi pointed out, the arguments still fresh in her mind. That whole memory trick again. “Anyway, I recall that the university administration agreed with me.”

“And I have no doubt you’d be more than willing to defend the same position what…ten or so years after the fact?”

“Twelve, as I’m sure you know perfectly well.” Her father might be an arrogant twit, but as a founding partner and long-standing chairman of a successful private equity firm, one thing Conrad Lodge III knew—and remembered—was numbers, any and all numbers. Except for the date of my birthday, she qualified silently.

But instead of enjoying her self-righteous sulk, Mimi suddenly experienced one of those lightbulb moments. “Wait a minute. You didn’t call to merely reminisce about one of my more dramatic episodes, did you?”

“Since when have I been inclined to reminisce about you?”

At least he was honest. This time, she amended.

“No, I was thinking about reconvening the same panel of administrators, coaches and students from before. A do-over confab, you might say.”

Mimi pinched the skin at her throat. “Well, I suppose the topic might be of general interest—might. As you’re no doubt aware, there’s been a number of recent headlines about colleges manipulating their athletic reporting to fulfill their Title IX obligations. But even if you buy into that premise, from the practical perspective, half the people who were on that panel must be dead.”

“There you go again—jumping to conclusions. As it turns out, only one person has passed away—the former athletic director.

“I remember him,” Mimi grumbled. The moron had refused equal locker room space to the women’s water polo team until their demonstration senior year. She smiled, remembering the photo in the New York Times of her leading her teammates into his office to use it as their changing room. Boy, did they get permission to share the men’s locker rooms adjacent to the pool, but fast.

“But the rest are still active at Grantham or other universities,” Conrad went on. “I even tracked down one of the coaches who’s currently with a professional basketball team in Italy.”

“And you honestly think you can get him and everyone else to come back for a rerun?”

“I already have. Everyone but you and one other person have been confirmed. Not many people say no to me.” He stated it as a simple matter of fact. “Besides, they’re doing it for Grantham.”

“And I’m such a loyal alum—not,” Mimi said. “But who knows, one of these days I might actually donate some money.”

“And give generously. All Lodges are loyal alums.” Her father’s words had a certain déjà vu ring to them.

She’d been ten, and it was right after her parents’ divorce. “All Lodge men go to Grantham,” she remembered him telling her. They’d been on a sailboat in Seal Harbor, Maine. Mimi had had two options—stay in a sweltering apartment in Easton, a far less socially acceptable town just north of Grantham where her mother had moved, or two, enjoy coastal Maine’s balmy breezes and wild blueberries—not to mention an unlimited family tab at the Bar Harbor Club in between tennis lessons. She’d chosen Maine.

Two weeks later, her mother had chosen an overdose of sleeping pills.

Her father cleared his throat, bringing her back to the present. “So do I have your agreement?” he asked.

Mimi recalled her first experience on the panel. “You know, I’m not sure I’m your safest bet. Not only did I tee off some people in the audience, I didn’t exactly see eye to eye with some other members of the panel.”

“One in particular, I believe—the captain of the football team. How could I forget the way you dumped a pitcher of water over his head.” Conrad chuckled.

Actually, Mimi’s mind had raced ahead to her stripping off her clothes in the Allie Hammie fountain.

“If memory serves me correctly, he rose above your antics with great equanimity. A true Grantham man.”

She remembered something else rising. She smiled—at that and the picture of the cops arriving at the fountain. Equanimity had been in short supply. “You know, Father, I’m not all that convinced that a replay would provide the results you’re looking for.”

And that’s when Mimi experienced a second lightbulb moment. Two in one conversation! Which could only mean… “Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you’re trying to create some drama?” She hated the fact that her father had so easily manipulated her—for his own purposes, no less.

“These alumni panels can sometimes be rather dry, much too intellectual. Do we really need to be lectured on our overdependence on oil or the future of the space program? Far more entertaining to watch sparks fly, don’t you agree?”

Vic Golinski. Mimi hadn’t thought about him since graduation. What she did remember was they were more than polar opposites. They were matter and antimatter. Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner. Get them together, and it was total combustion—as that one time had proved.

Not that he’d even remember her, she immediately dismissed. It wasn’t like they’d ever hung around together in college. And hadn’t he gone on to some pro football career? He probably had groupies at his beck and call.

“So what do you think?” her father prompted her.

Mimi wasn’t ready to commit. “Did you say one other person hasn’t gotten back?”

“That’s right.”

Mimi heard a shuffling of papers.

“Yes, it’s the other undergraduate member of the panel…that former football captain…named…let’s see…yes, here it is. Golinski. Witek Golinski. Quite a mouthful.” He chuckled in a condescending way.

What a narrow-minded snob, Mimi thought with irritation. “Vic. He went by Vic,” she corrected him. And impulsively, to thwart his smugness, Mimi blurted out, “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“I knew I could count on you.” Again, that conceit.

You want drama? I’ll give you drama, Mimi thought. She could be just as manipulative as her father—for her own ends. “Yes, I’ll participate on the panel—on one condition, no, two actually. First, I’ll do it, but only if Vic Golinski does, too.”

“I’ll call him as soon as I hang up,” her father answered. “And the second proviso?”

“I want you to notify the fire department.”

“The fire department? I don’t understand?”

Mimi smiled for the first time in months. “Forget sparks. I predict a fire of major proportions.”

CHAPTER TWO

“HERE’S YOUR ORDER, THEN—Ubatuba.” Vic Golinski pointed to two enormous slabs of polished granite. They were stacked vertically in a wooden pallet in the brightly lit warehouse the size of a giant airplane hangar. Several 747s could have fit in the space with no problem. Rows and rows of identical pallets held enormous rectangles of different stone, all finished on one flat surface, rough and scored on the reverse. The high-tech space was filled with the mechanical whirring and beeping of a crane maneuvering a slab of pink-flecked granite to a flatbed truck stationed by the open garage doorway.

“Ubatuba is our largest seller and a fairly uniform stone,” Vic explained. His voice was calm, solicitous, betraying none of the awareness that myriad tasks awaited him with a timeline of “yesterday.”

He waved the young couple next to him to come closer. “Have a good look here. See how the flecks are regular and there’s no discernible veining? That’s typical of Ubatuba granite—not a lot of variation from one shipment to the next.” He ran his hand up and down the polished side of the stone. “Still, I’m delighted you came in to check out your order. I always tell customers that it’s best to come to the warehouse to see what they are getting, rather than take the salesman’s word back at the store. It’s your money and your kitchen, after all, and you want what’s best.”