Tracy Kelleher - The Company You Keep

He studied her face. “You think you know me?”

She touched the top of her hoagie bag. The burst of energy she had felt when first seeing him was slowly seeping away. And she could almost feel her eyes darting back and forth, studying the people passing by on the sidewalk or going in and out of Hoagie Palace.

Stop it! she reprimanded herself. This is bloody Grantham, after all! The biggest criminal threats were bored teenagers shoplifting from the drug store.

She squared her shoulders and fixed a smile on her face. “Let’s start again. So, are you living nearby or did you just come in early for Reunions?” The Reunions festivities didn’t begin until Friday evening, so there were a few days to go.

He studied her some more, then visibly eased off. “I live in town now. Actually, my whole family does. In a small town house development behind the shopping center.”

Mimi nodded. “I think I know the one you mean. Brick? Kind of a Georgetown re-dux? Very exclusive. I bet you even have an aesthetically minded owners association.”

“So you heard about the no clothesline rule, then?”

“You’re joking?”

“Could I make something like that up?” he asked. A smile twitched the corner of his mouth.

“No, I guess not.” She chuckled then gazed into his face. “So you think we’ll be able to be civil to each other?” She cocked her head.

“Only with immense amounts of restraint.” He shifted his bag of food to the other arm and cradled it like a football.

How fitting, thought Mimi. She was actually starting to relax again. Weird, the one person in Grantham who had vexed her the most now seemed capable of putting her best at ease. “If you want, we could eat our hoagies together?” She held up her paper bag.

“I was going to take it home.” He hesitated. “Of course, you’re welcome to come.”

Why did she feel he was just being polite? And anyway, even though he had bought food for only himself, who was to say he wasn’t meeting someone? For some reason, the prospect of having to make polite conversation with Vic Golinski’s current squeeze was more than she could bear at the moment.

So, instead, she glanced down at her oversize wristwatch—not the sturdy Rolex from her mother, that one was gone forever—and started to back away down the sidewalk. “Thanks for the offer, but on second thought, I should probably head home.” She held up her wrist and tapped the crystal of her black Swatch. “My family’s probably wondering what’s happened to me.” Like that was really going to happen, Mimi thought. Whatever, it was as good an excuse as any.

“So, I’ll be off, then.” She pointed vaguely toward the center of town. Her family’s house was located on the west side about a half-mile past the commercial stretch, in the Old Money residential section. Even the rhododendrons on that side of town could boast aristocratic lineages.

“I can give you a lift if you’re in a hurry.”

She shook her head. “Not to worry, I’m fine. Besides, I wouldn’t want to take you out of your way.” The ride in from the train station with Press had not totally been knuckle biting, but it had probably been enough to tax her stamina for one day. “It’s not personal. I prefer to walk.” Now that was the truth.

“Don’t worry. I don’t take it personally.”

From the scowl on his face, she wasn’t so sure.

“On the other hand, I’m parked in a spot down a ways—right in the direction you’re headed. If you don’t mind, I’ll just tag along that far. That way you’ll get the chance to meet my girl. She’s waiting in the car.” He seemed very chipper all of a sudden. “She’s the hot sauce fanatic actually.”

Was it too late to run?

CHAPTER SIX

CONRAD LODGE SAT in his usual leather armchair in the study of the Lodge mansion on Singleton Road, the thoroughfare that led into the “right” side of town. One-hundred-year-old sycamores shaded the sidewalks. Tall brick and stone walls and wrought-iron fences with security boxes guarded the magisterial homes, including the residence of New Jersey’s governor.

“So how does she look?” Conrad asked. He cupped a cut-crystal tumbler with the finest single malt whisky, resting on a coaster featuring the Grantham University crest. In his other hand, he held a newly lit cigar. A red circle of flame shone around the gray ash center.

“How does she look?” Press repeated wearily. How about how do I look? This was the first he had laid eyes on his father since coming back to Grantham. His flight had gotten in around three in the afternoon. And by the time he had caught the train down and gotten a taxi home, it was after five. After five—but still several hours before Conrad’s train was due in from Manhattan.

He had no sooner gotten home than he’d received a message from his father’s assistant to pick up Mimi at Grantham Junction station.

So, there Press stood, zonked out from jetlag and the crazy fourteen-hour time difference between the U.S. and Australia, enduring a cross-examination from his father. Did the old man think to ask how his flight was? If his planes had been crowded? On time? Let alone how his work was going in Melbourne?

Of course not.

His father had never asked him about anything that Press cared about. Business and Grantham—that’s all he could talk about. “Why don’t you go out for football at Grantham, the way I did?” his father had instead asked critically. “Why don’t you talk to my friend at such-and-such investment firm about a summer internship? Do something real with your life.”

All his life, Press figured he’d been a failure to his father’s way of thinking. No, it was worse than that. It was more like his father didn’t think of him at all.

Though Press had never gotten the impression that Dear Old Dad cared one whit for Mimi, either. Still, it had been on his father’s marching orders that Press had returned for Reunions and to come and visit his sister. Truth be told, he would have returned anyway, but he wasn’t about to admit that to his father. One, because Press didn’t like to give him any satisfaction that they might be thinking along the same lines. God forbid! And two, this way his father had paid for the flight. Considering the cost of living in Australia, not to mention the sky-high price of the airfare, Press would have had to forego food in order to pay for the trip.

So he just rubbed his bloodshot eyes and mumbled, “She looks like you’d expect.” Press might not be a “real Lodge man,” but he had learned over the years that mouthing off provided only temporary satisfaction at best.

“Speak up, Prescott,” Conrad ordered.

Press looked up. “She’s kind of jumpy, but otherwise not too bad.”

Conrad rested his cigar in a green Venetian glass ashtray. “No outbursts of anger?”

Press shrugged. “No more than usual. Mimi’s never been exactly nonconfrontational.”

“She didn’t mention difficulties sleeping, eating, show difficulties concentrating, did she?”

“If I had known that my job involved making clinical observations, I would have taken notes.”

“There’s no need for insolence. You don’t seem to grasp the severity of the traumatic situation your sister’s been through.”

“I know she had it pretty rough. I’m not totally insensitive, you know.” He dug his hands in his jeans pockets. He felt his phone, a reminder that he was already late to meet Amara and Matt.

Anyway, like he’d ever admit to his father how he’d scoured the internet during his half-sister’s captivity. He’d even joined chat groups with Eastern European members with the hopes of obtaining some inside information that didn’t make it to the regular news media. That involvement, though, had scared him more than anything.