Рита Браун - Rest In Pieces

A coral dress accentuated her dark coloring, the lowcut bodice calling attention to her glories. When she and Blair returned to their table after dancing, a college friend of his joined them. After the introductions, Orlando Heguay pulled up a chair.

“How’s life in the boonies?”

“Interesting.”

Orlando smiled at BoomBoom. “If this lovely lady is proof, I should say so.”

BoomBoom smiled back. Her teeth glistened; she’d had them cleaned the day before. “You flatter me.”

“Quite the contrary. My vocabulary fails me.”

Blair smiled indulgently. “Come visit for New Year’s. I might even have furniture by then.”

“Blair, that’s a deal.”

“Orlando, refresh my memory. Were you at Exeter or Andover?”

“Andover. Carlos was Exeter. Mother and Dad thought we should go to separate schools, since we were so competitive. And now we’re in business together. I suppose they were right.”

“And what is your business, Mr. Heguay?”

“Oh, please call me Orlando.” He smiled again. He was a fine-looking man. “Carlos and I own The Atlantic Company. We provide architects and interior designers to various clients, many of whom reside in South America as well as North America. I was the original architect and Carlos was the original interior designer, but now we have a team of fifteen employees.”

“You sound as though you love it,” BoomBoom cooed.

“I do.”

Blair, amused by BoomBoom’s obvious interest—an interest reflected by Orlando—asked, “Didn’t you go to school with Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton?”

“Year behind me. Poor guy.”

“What do you mean?”

“His parents were killed in a small plane crash one summer. Then he and a buddy were in a car wreck. Messed them up pretty badly. I heard he’d had kind of a breakdown. People were surprised when he made it to Princeton in the fall, ’cause there’d been so much talk about him his senior year. People thought he was definitely on the skids.”

“He lives in Crozet, too . . . seems to be perfectly fine.”

“How about that. Remember Izzy Diamond?”

“I remember that he wanted to make Pen and Scroll so badly at Yale that I thought he’d die if he didn’t. Didn’t make it either.”

“Just got arrested for an investment scam.”

“Izzy Diamond?”

“Yes.” Orlando’s eyebrows darted upward, then he gazed at BoomBoom. “How rude of us to reminisce about college. Mademoiselle, may I have this dance?” He turned to Blair. “You’re going to have to find yourself another girl.”

Blair smiled and waved them off. He felt grateful to BoomBoom for easing his social passage into Central Virginia. In an odd way he liked her, although her need to be the center of attention bored him the more he was around her. Asking her to the Knickerbocker Ball was more of a payback than anything else. He couldn’t have been happier that Orlando found her tremendously attractive. Many of the men there cast admiring glances at BoomBoom. Blair was off women for a while, although he found himself thinking of Harry at the oddest times. He wondered what she’d do at a ball. Not that she’d be awkward but he couldn’t imagine her in a ball gown. Her natural element was boots, jeans, and a shirt. Given Harry’s small rear end, her natural element illuminated her physical charms. She was so practical, so down to earth. Suddenly Blair wished she were with him. Wouldn’t she find some funny things to say about this crowd?

44

“Who’ll start at fifteen thousand? Do I hear fifteen thousand? Now you can’t buy this new for under thirty-five. Who’ll bid fifteen thousand?”

As the auctioneer sang, insulted, joked, and carried on, Harry and Blair stood at the edge of the auction ground. A light rain dampened the attendance, and as temperatures were dropping, the rain could quite possibly turn to snow. People stamped their feet and rubbed their hands together. Even though she wore silk long johns, a T-shirt, a heavy sweater, and her down jacket, the cold nipped at Harry’s nose, hands, and feet. She could always keep her body warm but the extremities proved difficult.

Blair shifted from foot to foot. “Now you’re sure I need a seventy-horsepower tractor?”

“You can get along with forty-five or so, but if you have seventy you can do everything you’ll ever want to do. You want to turn up that back field of yours and fertilize it, right? You’ll want to bush-hog. You’ve got a lot to do at Foxden. I know that John Deere is old but it’s been well maintained and if you have a tiny bit of mechanical ability you can keep it humming.”

“Do I need a blade?”

“To scrape the driveway? You could get through the winter without one. It doesn’t usually snow much in Virginia. Let’s concentrate on the essentials.”

Life in the country was proving more complicated and expensive than Blair had imagined. Fortunately, he had resources, and fortunately, he had Harry. Otherwise he would have walked into a dealer and paid top dollar for a piece of new equipment, plus oodles of attachments he didn’t need immediately and might never even use.

The green and yellow John Deere tractor beckoned to more folks than Blair. Bidding was lively but he finally prevailed at twenty-two thousand five hundred, which was a whopping good buy. Harry did the bidding.

Harry, thrilled with his purchase, crawled up into the tractor, started her up, and chugged over in first gear to her gooseneck, a step-up. She’d brought along a wooden ramp, which weighed a ton. She kept the tractor running, put it in neutral, and locked the brake.

“Blair, this might take another man.”

He lifted one end. “How’d you get this thing on in the first place?”

“I keep it on the old hay wagon and when I need it I take it to the earthen ramp and then shove it off into the trailer, backed up to the ramp. I expand my vocabulary of abuse too.” She noticed Mr. Tapscott, who had purchased a dump truck. “Hey, Stuart, give me a hand.”

Mr. Tapscott ambled over, a tall man with gorgeous gray hair. “’Bout time you replenished your tractor, and you got the best deal today.”

“Blair bought it. I just did the bidding.” Harry introduced them.

Mr. Tapscott eyed Blair. As he liked Harry his eye was critical. He didn’t want any man hanging around who didn’t have some backbone.

“Harry showed me the roadwork you did out at Reverend Jones’. That was quite a job.”

“Enjoyed it.” Mr. Tapscott smiled. “Well, you feeling strong?”

To assist in this maneuver, Travis, Stuart’s son, joined in. The men easily positioned the heavy ramp, and Harry, in the driver’s seat, rolled the tractor into the gooseneck. Then the men slid the ramp into the trailer, leaning it against the tractor.

“Thank you, Mr. Tapscott.” Blair held out his hand.

“Glad to help the friend of a friend.” He smiled and wished them good day.

Once in her truck, Harry drove slowly because she wanted the ramp to bang up against the tractor only so much.