Jill Churchill - Silence of the Hams

“His latest effort was trying to shut down the Bakers' new deli," Jane said.

“Deli? Oh, that house at the end of the next block? How are they getting away with putting a business in a residential area anyway?" Suzie asked.

“Some quirk in the zoning laws," Jane said.

_ "Mike told me about it. He's working as a delivery boy for them this summer, you know. Apparently the house was the first on the block — an old farmstead. During World War II the people who lived there had a big garden and raised chickens and sold vegetables and eggs at a roadside stand. I guess they were still doing it when the township was incorporated or whatever townships do and so there was a grandfather clause.”

Shelley had sat down on the other side of Suzie and suddenly said, "Oh, yes! When I was a kid growing up here, my mother bought eggs from them. I'd completely forgotten that."

“I guess everybody had," Jane said. "When Conrad's wife and her sister inherited the house, they came back here to sell the place — did you know Conrad or Sarah, Shelley?"

“Only slightly. Conrad was two years ahead of me and Sarah was a year behind. Grace Axton — that's Sarah's sister — was in my class though."

“Anyway, Mike says Conrad did some research and discovered that the zoning had never been changed. It's something strange, like 'residential, with an exception to sell food products.' I mean, you couldn't put in a used car lot or anything."

“Conrad Baker figured this out himself?" Suzie asked. "I've run into him a couple times and I always thought he was pretty dim. Nice man, but about as bright as a breadstick.”

Shelley said, "Oh, no. He's really bright. Just quiet. Back in high school he won all sorts of awards — in the days when awards really meant something. He went to college for two or three years, got in on the tail end of the hippie thing. He and Sarah got married right after she graduated and they went off to Oregon or someplace to be flower children. They ended up working in logging camps as cooks."

“How do you know all this stuff?" Jane asked, surprised, as she often was, by Shelley's memory for gossip. She supposed that came from having lived in the same place for so long. Jane had grown up a State Department brat, never living in one place for more than a year and often for less. When she married, she had been determined that her children would stay put and form the kind of lifelong friendships and connections that Shelley proved were possible.

“My mother was friends with Sarah and Grace's grandmother. Bridge club," Shelley explained.

“Seems to me that somebody mentioned the Bakers having lost a child, too," Suzie said.

“Yes, I've heard that, too," Shelley said. "But I don't know any of the details. One of my husband's sisters once missed a period and has carried on for years about her 'miscarriage' so I always take remarks like that with a grain of salt."

“Well, whatever their background, Conrad's certainly a good cook," Jane said. "He's been practicing for the opening and selling some of the stuff at cost to Mike. We had pastrami sandwiches last night that were fantastic. He's going to sell some of that trendy, healthy stuff — soyburgers and tofu chicken, which sounds revolting. But he's also got a gadget for making potato chips. Puts a little garlic sea‑ soning in the oil and they're wonderful."

“Grease, salt, and starch. What more could a person ask?" Suzie said with a laugh. "So the handsome jogger was the one leading the fight against opening this heavenly place? Why would he care?"

“Because he paid far too much for his house and now he's trying to drag the neighborhood up to his standards?" Shelley said. "His wife, Rhonda, told me. They'd moved here from someplace in California and the price of the house looked great compared to California prices. It wasn't until they got moved in and were knee-deep in a lot of very expensive renovations that they realized they'd paid far too much. She didn't say so exactly, but suggested that he thought he could 'improve' the whole community and make his house worth what he paid. Having what he calls a 'market' in the middle of a residential area probably looks like a death knell to his plans."

“That, and he's just a natural-born grandstander, I think," Jane said. "Not only thinks he's superior to everyone else, but wants to make sure we all know it. I went to see him once and didn't like him at all."

“Went to see him? What do you mean?" Shelley asked.

“When my husband died I had to figure out how to handle the insurance money and Steve's portion of the profits from the family pharmacies, so I talked to a couple lawyers about setting up trusts for the kids' college expenses. Somebody suggested I consult the PCA, as Suzie so aptly calls him, so I did. He asked all sorts of questions — well, you'd expect that — but after a while I realized a lot of the questions weren't relevant. It took me a while. You know what a basket case I was for a while back then. By the time I realized what was going on, I'd blurted out all kinds of stuff about the pharmacies' finances, how much I'd invested myself back when I got that little inheritance and the business was having money problems, even the fact that the pharmacies had been having a long-running feud with the IRS about some deductions. I guess I thought he was just trying to be chummy and put me at my ease, or maybe trying to get a really complete view of the situation, but after a while, it started making me uneasy. He was asking about my relationship with my mother-in-law, about whom I said a few nasty things, I'm afraid. He even wanted to know who I inherited the money from, stuff like that."

“Why did he need to know that?" Shelley asked.

“I don't know. But it was creepy. And he was taking notes of everything I said. I quit pouring out personal information, asked a few questions, then got out of there," Jane said.

“But Jane, lots of people would love being asked all about themselves," Shelley said. "I'm always getting survey calls on the phone from people who are apparently amazed that I won't tell them my age and the family income. They whine about how the survey won't be valid without it, which leads me to think that other people are so flattered at being asked their opinions that they do give that information.”

Jane laughed. "Little do the surveyors know that there are people who would happily pay you to keep your opinions to yourself. Like the school principal, the PTA president, the entire IRS, that police officer who tried to give you a parking ticket—”

Shelley sat up very straight. "That wasn't an opinion. It was a definition. Parking and standing are two distinctly different things and the officer agreed with me — eventually."

“Agreed? I heard he was weeping openly when you got through with him," Jane said.

Suzie laughed. "Here I am lurking in the dark, trying to catch a rich husband, and all I catch is the two of you! What a waste of a beautiful spring evening.”

"So what did you decide about Mike's graduation gift?" Shelley asked a little later.

Shelley and Jane had determined that after their ordeal they were richly entitled to a cup of coffee and a donut and were sitting at Jane’s kitchen table, indulging. Jane's big yellow dog, Willard, was watching every bite either of them took, hoping for crumbs.

Jane leaned back and looked into the living room to make sure Mike wasn't there. "Oh, a car. I haven't got any choice. This is a delivery job he has this summer and Conrad can't afford to supply a vehicle. If Mike takes my car, I'm stranded. Katie's teaching at the Vacation Bible School and can walk, but Todd's got soccer team and guitar lessons, and I can't expect somebody else to drive him all the time. Mike will need a car for college anyway. He's determined to go to school in-state and come home often. I think he feels like I can't get along without him nearby."