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  Other things did, though. I noted each mention of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. I noted references to autism (e.g., Alice Le Claire’s three-year-old son had started at a special school for autistic children), references to breathing difficulties and digestive problems, and I put asterisks beside those instances in which a history was mentioned (e.g., Susannah Alban was recovering from another miscarriage). I noted when babies were born either very early or with illnesses that kept them hospitalized.

  In skimming the microfiche reel, I found an announcement of the wedding of Seth and Juanita Haynes. It was on the front page of the paper two years ago last June. The event was in New York City and sounded elegant, from the elaborate description. Interestingly, there was no picture, though I had no doubt pictures did exist. Carolee Haynes was not only a bigot, but a coward.

  I went back through five years of the Middle River Times—not because I planned to go that far or spend so long at it, but because I kept munching on my chocolate pennies thinking that I would read just one more issue, and those “just one more” s added up. By the time I was done, I had many pages of scribbles.

  I flipped slowly through, hoping a pattern would jump out. Oh, the potential was there. Lots of people were sick, many with symptoms like my mother’s. But was it mercury poisoning? I had no idea.

  I told myself that I needed more information, that I had to sit down with a map of the town and put dots in the spots where each of the afflicted lived to see if there were pockets of illness, that I had to learn whether Northwood did indeed produce mercury waste and, if so, I had to go to the next step, whatever that was. I told myself that I shouldn’t worry about the lack of instant answers, that this was just the start.

  But I was discouraged. Having exhausted my supply of chocolate pennies, I was also hungry. It was midafternoon, and I was craving protein. I could have gone home to Phoebe’s, but by now everyone in town knew I was here, so keeping a low profile was needless. Besides, I kept thinking of Omie. She was the third and last of the friends I’d had in town. I had seen her briefly at the funeral but hadn’t had the state of mind to talk with her, any more than with Mrs. Klausson or with Sam. Today’s paper said she’d been sick. I really wanted to say hello.

  So I returned the microfiche reels to their drawers—neatly and in order, so that no one would know I had been here—and left the newspaper office. Though Middle River was no humming metropolis on a hot Thursday afternoon in August, the center of town was far from deserted. My car was one of a dozen or so parked in those diagonal spaces that ran up the street. Granted, mine was the only convertible. Convertibles weren’t practical in towns like Middle River, where winters required four-wheel-drive vehicles, chores involved carrying large loads, and family space was a necessity.

  I tossed my purse into the car and slid in. Fortunately, I was wearing jeans. Even through the thick fabric, I could feel the heat of the sun-baked seat. Feeling the heat all over, actually, I slipped on sunglasses, started the engine, and looked behind to back out of my space. I saw no cars in the road. But I was being watched. Directly across the street, several people looked on from the sidewalk in front of Farnum Hardware, and down a bit, several more from just outside Harriman’s Grocery. A pickup was idling nose-in at the curb in front of News ’n Chews, driver waiting—watching me too—until a trio of children ran out with small brown bags of candy and climbed up into the cab.

  I didn’t acknowledge anyone. My Middle River persona wasn’t attuned to social niceties. Shifting, I drove on down Oak, crossing Pine, then Cedar, where the roses at Road’s End Inn positively burst with sweetness in the midafternoon sun. At School Street, I made a left and passed several frame houses with daylilies growing orange and yellow and wild, before turning left again into Omie’s lot. There were only a handful of other vehicles, which was good. Much as I wanted to see Omie, I wasn’t in the mood to wait for a seat, and it wasn’t only a reluctance to be stared at. My stomach was growling, and the food smells even out here were strong.

  The diner was the real thing. Originally built for Omie’s father in the early 1900s as a lunch wagon with (new at the time and quite the thing) wooden counters that folded out to make a walk-up window, it had been modified, enlarged, and renovated many times over. Through it all, though, it retained the look and feel of a diner.

  Omie was similar, in a way. A small woman with white hair in a bun, a face filled with creases, and eyes that were eternally blue, she was either ancient or not, depending on what one wanted to think. Her actual age was irrelevant. Same with her last name. The few of us who knew it could neither spell it nor pronounce it, and it didn’t matter. Her daughters had Americanized the original Armenian, and then had all married local men of French-Canadian descent, so the original name was basically gone. Though Omie had great-grandchildren, perhaps even great-greats by now, she remained a grandmother to everyone who opened the diner door and went inside.

  Indeed, though she still had the look of a traditional Armenian grandmother, inside she was anything but. For one thing, she had an exquisite business sense. For another, she thrived on work. Long after other great-grandmothers in town had retired to their back porches to alternately rock and crochet, she was at the diner overseeing hiring, firing, redecoration, and menu changes. She had officially passed ownership to her eldest daughter years before, but the transfer was only on paper. The diner was Omie’s.

  Where wheels had been in the structure’s infancy, now stood a base of solid brick. The body of the diner had sides of stainless steel with burnished circles, and panels of decorative tiles between wide windows. The tiles were blue, green, and white, as was the sign high on the roof. OMIE’S, it read in acknowledgment of the woman’s force. It had been a gift from her family several decades before, prior to which there had been no sign at all.

  I heard a little whispering, but this wasn’t Grace. It was my own inner someone telling me that this place was special, and it was all the urging I needed. Grabbing my purse, I climbed from the car and went inside.

  Chapter 8

  SOMETHING WAS cooking—chicken fajitas, I guessed, from the smell and the sizzle—but with Omie I could never be sure. As Americanized as she was, as wise to the needs of Middle Riverites, Omie prized her Armenian heritage. That meant she cooked as often with lamb as with beef, baked as often with phyllo dough as with flour, seasoned as often with cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and clove as with salt, pepper, parsley, and thyme. New items like fajitas, pastas, and Caesar salads popped onto the menu to keep the diner current, but there were always old standbys—chicken pot pie, macaroni and cheese, and Omie’s hash—all of it cooked with an Armenian flair. For that reason, any food smell that wafted from the diner carried the uniqueness of Omie.

  Moreover, the scents lingered, because Omie hated air-conditioning. She liked having the windows open, and kept her customers comfortable with old-fashioned fans. Since these never quite eliminated the humidity, smells clung.

  Those fans whirred now, stirring the air. Simon and Garfunkel sang softly through ceiling speakers, while the cold drink case hummed an even softer refrain. These things I heard clearly, because whatever conversation had been ongoing when I walked in the door had come to a dead stop.

  Feeling awkward, I retreated to my Washington mantra. I was successful in Washington. I had friends in Washington. I could walk into Galileo, Kinkead’s, or Cashion and be just like everyone else. That was what I had wanted most when I left Middle River—not the walking into restaurants part, but the being just like everyone else part. Isn’t that what most of us want, to be part of something, to belong? Here was TRUTH #4: We can thumb our noses all we want at people who are different from us, but in the end we ache to belong.

  Standing now with the nearest fan stirring loose wisps of my hair, and all eyes turned my way, I ached for that in this town too. Middle River was where I was born. I had spent the most important eighteen years of my life here, many of those wishing, praying, yearning to be part of
it all. Of course, I wouldn’t have admitted it back then. I hadn’t realized it back then. It was only now, in this very instant, that I saw how true it was.

  I needed Omie.

  Drawing myself up, I ignored stares and looked around. Over the years, the diner had grown deeper. To the right of the kitchen, through an archway, were tables that sat sixty, but they were empty now. This time of day, the action was up front, in the diner’s heart. Five men sat at the counter—a trio along the front arm, another two at the rear of the L. Of a dozen booths hugging the front of the diner and its adjoining right side, three were taken.

  I didn’t see Omie. But she would find me. She always did.

  My favorite booth was five away from the door, the one in the corner before the line of booths turned and, like the counter, shot toward the back of the diner. I had always felt enveloped in this booth, and hence safer. Unoccupied now, it beckoned.

  Heading there, I passed a booth with two women I recognized as neighbors of Sabina’s. Their eyes met mine. They didn’t smile. Same with the family of four in the next booth.

  The third occupied booth was midway among those running from my corner back along the side wall of the diner. Pamela Farrow and her husband sat there, snuggled side by side, holding hands. Hal was fully engrossed in his wife. Pamela’s eyes flicked briefly to mine before returning to his—no smile, no hello, just a glance—quite different from the way she had fawned over me the day before.

  So maybe she was just so in love with her husband that she couldn’t think of anything else. More likely, someone had gotten to her.

  Or, perhaps she was simply acutely aware that one of the two men at the far back end of the counter was James Meade. He couldn’t be missed, with his straight back and dark, brooding look—not to mention striking salt-and-pepper hair. I could see the latter now as I hadn’t seen it when he had been in the shadow of his car, and might have been surprised by it—James wasn’t quite forty—had not the father been silver forever.

  James didn’t intimidate me. I wasn’t in his employ and didn’t owe him a thing. Naturally, Pamela would be thinking that if she gushed over me, James would tell his father, who chaired the School Committee, which determined the tenure of her husband as high school principal.

  And that was fine. I didn’t miss her fawning. I wasn’t here to make friends and influence people. Class reunions had never been my thing. I had friends. I had lots of friends.

  Thinking about them now, I slid into my booth. As James Taylor took over the airwaves, I set my purse by my hip on the wood bench and my elbows on the dark green Formica. In that moment, at least, I was confident.

  A menu was wedged between the napkin holder and a jar of ketchup. I pulled it out, opened it, and began to peruse. Little by little, conversations that had been interrupted by my arrival resumed.

  “Just when I needed a cup of tea,” came a sweet, familiar, and very welcome voice.

  I looked up as Omie lowered herself to the opposite bench. Those endless blue eyes had faded some, and her cheeks had the texture of washed crepe. She looked paler than I recalled, but her smile was as sincere as ever. On impulse, I rose and, bracing myself on the table, leaned across and kissed her cheek.

  “You look better than last time,” she remarked in a grandmotherly voice that held only the faintest trace of an accent. She had been a small child when her parents reached America, and had grown up speaking English with other children. What accent she had she chose to have. It gave her voice a distinctive ring.

  “Time has passed,” I said. “The shock has worn off. I hear you’ve been sick.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Pneumonia isn’t nothing.”

  “Well, it is if it’s gone,” she said with the dismissive wave of a hand. “These things happen when you get to be my age. Two, three times a year it’s a cold or such. Too many people in here with their germs. I can’t throw things off like I used to. I’m getting old.”

  I wondered if it was that, or if her immune system was being depleted by something else. It was definitely worth considering, but later. I gestured toward the menu. “From the looks of this, you could be forty. There are lots of new things mixed in with the old.”

  Omie smiled. “I have to please everyone if I want to stay in business.”

  I lowered my voice. “If the goal is staying in business, you shouldn’t be having your tea with me. I sense that your other customers would rather I not be here.” The women who lived near Sabina had already left their booth and were at the cash register.

  Omie, too, spoke more quietly. “Ignore them. They’re frightened of you.”

  “Frightened?”

  “You speak the truth.”

  “And they don’t?”

  Omie didn’t answer. We both knew that hypocrisy festered in towns like Middle River. Under the facade of beauty, there was a stratum of dirt. Grace had known this. It was a major theme running through Peyton Place, a major theme running through her life. She’d had dreams and ideals that were all too often betrayed.

  “What are they hiding?” I whispered now.

  “What aren’t they hiding?” Omie whispered back.

  “Tell me the latest.”

  Omie seemed happy to do that. “Those three at the counter? Doug Hartz is the one in the middle, the one looking uneasy. See how he keeps glancing back at you?”

  I did. “What’s his problem?”

  “He prides himself on not paying taxes. Tells enough people so the whole town knows. Seems to think that if he runs a cash business, he’ll slip by under the radar.”

  “So why do I make him nervous?”

  “You’re from Washington. The IRS is in Washington. He thinks you’ll tell.”

  “That’s pretty funny,” I said, because the connection was absurd. “And the two women who just left? What chased them off?”

  “Your success. They meet here every afternoon at two to work on a book they’re writing. They’ve been doing this for three years, and there’s no sign of any book. And now here you are. For many people in this town, you’re everything they can never be.”

  “Even James?” I asked, because his presence at the counter with his pal was so there.

  “Even James,” Omie said and gave a little snort of dismay. “Staying at that mill under the thumb of his father—can you imagine? It’s a waste. James is the smartest of the bunch.”

  “Not smart enough to leave Middle River,” I remarked.

  But Omie drew the line there. “Why would he leave?” she asked with a softness that made its point. “Life here is better than it would be most anywhere else. He’s tasted what it’s like to live away. He was away for college and graduate school. There was a time when he was on the road four days a week doing work for the mill. He knows what it’s like, and he chose to come back.”

  “Chose? Or was forced?” I could imagine Sandy telling James he was free to leave, but that if he chose to, it would be without a cent of Meade money. “Extortion can take different forms.”

  Omie didn’t reply to that. Instead, she beckoned her grandson over and asked me, “What will you have to eat?”

  I ordered the balsamic chicken salad and an iced tea. The latter arrived before either of us could resume the discussion. By that time, the family of four had skedaddled, Van Morrison was singing, and I was studying the man with James. He sat with his shoulders hunched, his eyes on his hands, and his hands on a bottle of beer. He had the look of a man besieged. I might have guessed he didn’t even know I was here.

  I had a sudden start of recognition. “Is that Alfie Monroe?” I whispered. At Omie’s nod, I looked at him, then away, then sipped my tea and studied him over the rim of the glass. Alfie Monroe had been at the mill all his life. Hardworking and decent, he had worked his way up until he was one step below the Meade sons, and well respected for it. The man I remember was good looking and proud. He would be in his early fifties now. This man looked older than that, and I wouldn’t have noted eith
er good looks or pride.

  Had I read anything in the paper about him? I didn’t think so.

  “Is he not well?” I asked but my imagination had already taken off. If toxic waste had been released by the mill, someone who worked in its bowels stood an even greater risk of affliction. The Meades worked in offices far from the nitty-gritty. Not so the plant manager.

  “He’s well in body, but not in mind,” Omie said. “He was passed over when Sandy hired Tony O’Roarke to manage the plant.”

  No. I hadn’t read this. There had been nothing in the paper, and I knew why. Sam Winchell would have disapproved of an outsider displacing Alfie, but Sam was a pragmatist. He knew that nothing he said in his paper could either change what Sandy had done or help Alfie. His protest was to say nothing at all.

  I pictured Tony O’Roarke driving James Meade around town in that big black SUV, and felt a stab of annoyance. “Why didn’t Alfie get the job?”

  “The Meades wanted someone more experienced.”

  “Who could be more experienced than Alfie? He’s been with the company all his life.”

  Omie thought about that as she sipped her tea. Eyes sad, she set down the cup. “Sandy felt they needed a new approach.”

  “Approach to what?”

  “Keeping things streamlined.”

  I interpreted that to mean cheap. “Sandy wants more productivity for less money.”

  Omie didn’t argue. As she took another sip of tea, Pamela and Hal left their booth and passed by without a glance. My salad arrived. I began to eat. Doug Hartz and his friends slid off stools, dug into pockets, and dropped cash by plates, then followed Pamela and Hal out the door. In their wake, a group of teenagers entered, girls identical with their low-cut jeans, skinny tops, and ironed hair. Two of the five had cell phones to their ears. Several glanced my way as they passed. One did a double-take.