by Mary Campisi
“Uncle Walter depends on you. Why disrupt the infrastructure of the company because of our…”—she searched for the right words—“personal differences?” Besides, just the thought of confiding the truth to her uncle turned her stomach. Eric chose a silicone-enhanced woman with collagen-injected lips and a 1.8 GPA over me, Uncle Walter, over me! It was too humiliating, too degrading to even consider. Alex knew all about Miss September, Tanya Wells, had studied her as though she were preparing to present her Master’s thesis; born Tanya Lynnette Welleshanko in Tulsa, Oklahoma, age, 23, height, 5’ 9”, weight, 108 lbs., college, attended OSU three years, majoring in Communications. Currently employed as a hostess at Outback Steakhouse in Tulsa. Participated in Playboy’s College Search during her sophomore year, selected for September issue. Favorite color, pale pink. Favorite food, McDonald’s French fries dipped in a chocolate milkshake. Gag!
And then there was the other reason, the one even she didn’t like to think about. What if she told Uncle Walter the truth and he didn’t fire Eric? What if he decided Eric’s little indiscretion shouldn’t interfere with the company, and continued on as though nothing had happened? Uncle Walter loved her even though he never said it. But the company was his whole life and she did not want to be pitted against it for his allegiance, mostly because deep down, she feared she might lose.
So she pretended her divorce fell under the blanket of ‘irreconcilable differences’ ranging from I didn’t like the way he squeezed the toothpaste to marriage was too intimate a relationship for me.
“Alex?”
“What?” She looked up, pushed the past away. “What?”
He was studying her, his blue eyes intent behind his glasses. “I know I screwed up, but I’m not giving up on us. I won’t quit until I have you back.”
“Eric—”
A knock on the door cut her off. Walter Eugene Chamberlain, CEO of WEC Management, poked his head in and said, “Well, should I call Armand and tell him to chill the champagne?”
“Tell him two bottles,” Eric said, grinning.
“He agreed to everything?”
“Yes,” Alex said, avoiding Eric’s gaze. Her uncle wasn’t interested in anything as inconsequential as an old man’s sentimental fondness for a tree.
“Good. Very good.” He smiled, a sliver of upturned lips, and settled himself in the chair next to Eric. “This is going to be a phenomenal addition to Krystal Springs.”
“Preliminary projections indicate revenue will almost double once the ski lodge is in place,” Alex said. “Krystal Springs could be our most profitable venture yet.”
Her uncle’s smile spread, bit by bit. Talk about development and rate of return could do that to him. When he smiled, which wasn’t often, his thin lips pulled across his face in a slow, calculated manner, as though at sixty-four years of age, he still wasn’t comfortable with the exercise. He was a handsome man, his skin golden from hours spent on the green, his pale blue eyes sharp, his silver hair neat and tapered from weekly trims, his nose long and straight, his body, tall and erect. Walter Chamberlain was like a father to Alex, fitting the role with more ease and right than her real father, who, with each passing year became less reality and more of a scattered memory, torn with gaping holes. She had nothing, not even a picture to remember him or her mother by. Only memories that faded and an old chipped mirror they’d given her when she was eight, a few days before they died.
“I want you to run the numbers again, use an eight percent rate of return, see what that does,” he said.
Alex jotted a note on her legal pad. “I’ll get it to you this afternoon.”
“And I’ll have Sylvia make lunch reservations at Emilio’s,” Eric said, standing. “With two bottles of Dom Perignon.”
When he left, Uncle Walter stretched out his legs and sighed. “Ah, Alex, there’s nothing like the thrill of a good deal pulsing through your veins to keep you going.”
She smiled. “I think any deal, good or bad, would keep you going, Uncle Walter.”
His mouth twitched. “True, but you aren’t much different than me, young lady. You love the chase as much as I do.”
He was right, of course. She did enjoy the challenge of finding locations for WEC resorts. It was like putting together a thousand-piece puzzle of an ocean where three quarters of the pieces were blue, a slightly different shade perhaps, but still blue. Selecting the ideal site was a lot like that, at least initially. There was only one major criterion, the same one for every project—the location needed to be within a one-hour proximity to a metropolitan area. Once Alex established those boundaries, she gathered charts, maps, and graphs, studied water tables, terrain, and climates. Depending on the type of resort they were considering, summer, winter or a combination, she made her initial recommendations and then went to scout out the place.
That’s where it got interesting, living in the town for two or three months, finding out who was in charge, and it was never the mayor, who had an alliance or a relationship to whom, who could be persuaded, who needed money. These were things you couldn’t find out from studying a piece of paper, you had to get in the trenches, imbed yourself among them, kind of like a computer virus, absorbing information, collecting data without anyone’s knowledge but unlike the virus that corrupts and destroys, Alex thought of her methods as a way to help those who couldn’t or didn’t know how to help themselves. Consider the widowed part-time Super Duper cashier who’d never been farther than an hour from her home. Buying up her property enabled her to go on a cruise with her women friends and purchase a condo near her son in North Carolina. Or the fifty-year old man who’d been laboring in the same factory for thirty-two years. He sold his land, moved his family to a suburb outside of Jacksonville, Florida and opened up a pizza shop.
With research, care and timing, everybody got what they wanted. In the seven years she’d been involved with the property research division of WEC Management, there’d only been two times when an individual had refused to sell. The first happened years ago, when Alex had just taken over the division. There was a farmer in Roanoke, Virginia, Leon ‘Rusty’ Dade, who owned fifty acres of land. He farmed some, rented out some, and kept the biggest section for his most prized possessions, his Black Angus. And no amount of cash incentives could persuade Rusty to sell. The land was his legacy, could be traced all the way back to his great-granddaddy’s granddaddy, and would be his five children’s legacy, too. The last Alex inquired, a year ago, Rusty was still farming and ranching and living out his legacy.
The only other time anyone had refused a WEC Management offer was two years ago when its chief competitor, Cora Ltd., slid in and bought up a track of land an hour from Portland, Oregon. Alex had been sure WEC would get the deal, had been shocked when they didn’t. Until she heard that the CEO’s son, Sam Cora, was keeping very close company with Lilly Arbogast, whose father, Jed, owned thirty-five of the fifty acres in question. And it didn’t surprise anyone, except maybe Lilly, that once the deal was done, so was Lilly.
“So do you want to tell me about the next venture?” Uncle Walter asked, straightening his gray silk tie.
This was when she felt the closest to her uncle, here, in this room, pouring over charts and graphs, watching his eyes spark with interest as she drew him into the planning stages of a certain piece of property, considering and discussing all of its possibilities. The usual stern expression on his face smoothed out, the brackets around his mouth faded, and he seemed almost… relaxed. If you could call a man who spent six and a half days at the office, had his hair trimmed every five days, and never went anywhere without at least a sport coat, relaxed. There was a oneness here, a unity, intangible yet real, that bound them to each other when they were planning a project. Alex felt it, he had to feel it too. So, maybe her uncle didn’t say the words, but she knew he cared. When he nodded his silver head in agreement, she felt like a child on a hot summer’s day, who’d just been given an ice cream cone. Delight. Pure delight.
“Alex? Plan on kee
ping it all to yourself?”
“No.” She laughed, ran a hand through her hair. “Actually, I think I may have found the ideal location for our next project.” She tried to control her excitement but it burst out, “A year round resort.”
“That’s quite a statement, young lady.”
“I know. But it looks perfect, at least the specs do. It’s an area in the northwestern section of Pennsylvania, about an hour from Pittsburgh. Lots of trees, birds, deer, a lake even… the whole nature bit.” She waved a hand in front of her. “The kind of landscape tourists love. And, get this”—she leaned forward, rested her elbows on the top of her cherry desk—“the first snowfall last year was October twenty-second.”
His pale blue eyes lit up. “Mix it with a little powder…”
“And by mid-November the slopes would be ideal.” She swiveled her chair around, pulled a large portfolio off the credenza and spread the contents on the desk. “Here, we’ve got a map of the area. There’s the Allegheny River, running west, which seems to be right in the town’s backyard.” She traced a thin blue line. “And over here”—she pointed to a small, blue shape—“is Sapphire Lake. The water alone is enough to get excited about, but they’ve got mountains, and steep hills, too. I can just picture them with lights and ski lifts.”
Her uncle picked up the map, studied it, rubbed his jaw. “I don’t want another piecemeal project, Alex. This time, I want the whole thing. One deal, period.”
“I agree.” She shifted in her chair. “I know you were disappointed Mr. Oshanski didn’t sell out sooner.” Her voice dipped. “He had a lot of issues to deal with…”
“We can’t afford to fall prey to another person’s sentimental wanderings. If we can’t get the package this time, we don’t do the deal.”
“I’ll get it, Uncle Walter.” She hadn’t missed the flecks of disappointment in his voice. Even though he’d told her he didn’t hold her responsible for Mr. Oshanski’s thirteen-month delayed response, she felt responsible. She should have been able to persuade him to sell off his land and buy a condo in the suburbs. But looking at him, sitting in his rocker on the front porch of the old farmhouse where he and his deceased wife, Lena, had raised seven children, it hadn’t seemed appropriate or plausible to mention. He wasn’t the type who would look forward to central vacuuming or maintenance-free lawns. His children were scattered all over the country, busy with lives of their own and all he had left were memories… and a tree. Uncle Walter would never understand about the tree, or the memories, for that matter.
“What else do you know about the area?”
“Well, it looks like there are two families who run the place.” She scanned her notes. “The Kraziaks… and the Androvichs. A Mr. Norman Kraziak owns a sawmill company and a furniture manufacturing plant. They make specialty rocking chairs. And the Androvichs, looks like a Nicholas, owns five hundred acres and a logging business.”
“Interesting.”
Alex glanced up. “How so?”
Uncle Walter’s lips pulled into a semblance of a smile. “It’s obvious the businesses are interdependent. They may even have relatives on both sides, through marriage and whatnot. One can’t survive without the other. All you have to do is win one of them over...”
“And the other won’t be able to survive.”
“Or at the very least, surviving would prove very difficult. That’s where we come in and offer them a way out.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Alex jotted down a few notes. Meet Mr. Kraziak and Mr. Androvich, ASAP. “I thought I’d leave in a couple of days. Get myself settled.” Show you I haven’t lost my touch. I can do this, I can get the whole package.
“What? Not even a buying trip to New York?”
“No.” She gave him a sheepish look. “I hate to admit it, but I’ve got half a closet stuffed with clothes that still have Bloomingdale and Neiman Marcus tags on them. I really think I should pass.”
“Eric said something about Maui.”
Here it comes. “Good. He should take a vacation. He’s been working hard.”
Uncle Walter cleared his throat. “Actually, he said the same thing about you. He thinks you’ve been working very hard and need a break.” He paused, cleared his throat again. “I think he was intending to ask you to go with him.”
Alex underlined the names Kraziak and Androvich three times. “Sorry.” She looked up, gave him a half-smile. “I really want to get started on this project. It’s already May and I want to see the area in the summer. I figure two months for research”—she tapped her pen against her chin—“that should put us well into July.”
“I’ll expect to hear from you at least once a week,” Uncle Walter said. “And monthly visits. You’re not that far from home that you can’t make the trip once a month.”
“Of course,” Alex said, dipping her head to hide a smile. He got like this every time she told him she was going away somewhere. Call. Visit. Don’t forget to…. “Of course I’ll come home.”
“Good.” He picked at a piece of lint on the sleeve of his gray suit. “I want to be kept informed.” He looked up, met her gaze. “Remember, all or nothing.”
“I’ll remember.” He was never going to let her forget unless she redeemed herself with this next project.
He stood, brushed a hand over his slacks and said, “This place you’re going to, does it have a name?”
“Restalline. It’s called Restalline.”
Chapter 2
“What was it this time Harry?” Nick Androvich looked up from the chart in his hand. “Peanut butter pie? Cheeseburger from Hot Ed’s?”
The man on the exam table rubbed his stomach, groaned. “Sausage sub, peppers and onions.”
“From Hot Ed’s?”
Harry nodded. “Don’t tell Tilly, Doc. She’ll shoot me if she finds out.”
Nick set the chart on the counter beside him and shrugged. “I’m not going to tell Tilly anything. I won’t have to, Harry. One look at you and she’ll know what you’ve been doing.”
“Ah, Doc”—he moved his hand up and down from just below his belly button to the top of his groin—“I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mean to, honest. I just went in to give Bernie his mail, but I had to get his signature on a certified piece and he was back in the kitchen frying up peppers and onions.” He groaned again, let out a belch. “I couldn’t stand it. The sausage was just sitting there, all shiny and plump. And that smell… After three weeks of broth and boiled chicken, I went crazy. Bernie and I figured one sub would be okay.”
“Well now you know it isn’t.”
Harry lowered his head which was shaved to less than half an inch on top, gray speckled with brown. “I think it was the other ones that did me in.”
“The other ones?” Harry wasn’t going to stop until he landed on the operating table. “How many other ones would that be?”
Harry’s shoulders slumped forward. “I don’t know what came over me.” He inched his eyes up to meet Nick’s. “I tell you, it was like I was an addict, and that sausage sub was my drug.”
“How many, Harry?” The man was going to eat himself right into his grave.
“Three.” The word came out low, barely above a whisper.
“Three,” Nick repeated.
“I’m sorry, Doc.”
“Damn it, Harry, you know better. You were in her three weeks ago because Tilly’s chicken paprikash finally caught up with you. Remember telling me it felt like somebody was running a hot poker along your insides?”
“I know, I know.” He clutched his stomach with both hands and leaned forward.
Nick rested his hand on the other man’s shoulder. Harry Lendergin had been delivering mail to the residents of Restalline for thirty-four years. He knew every route, every street number and name, had been assigned to most at one time or another. Over the years, he’d stuffed hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of pieces of information into mailboxes, bills, letters, junk mail, magazines, good news and bad, hoped for
and dreaded, in small white envelopes and long manila squares. He’d carried Nick his MCAT scores, then his admission letter to Hahnemann and later yet, a certificate from the state of Pennsylvania with his name on it—Nicholas Anthony Androvich, Board Certified in Family Practice. Harry was a simple man, honest, hardworking, with a wife, two grown daughters, and an affinity for food packed with fat.
“I’m from the old school, Doc.” Harry shifted around on the exam table, settled both hands over his stomach, started rubbing up and down. “When Tilly gives me a piece of cake, I want it to taste like cake, not that god-awful yogurt stuff she puts in there. Substitute. That’s what she says.” He heaved a big sigh. “She’s driving me nuts, you know that?”
“Harry,” Nick said in a gentler tone. “This isn’t about Tilly, she’s only trying to help. It’s up to you. You were raised on bacon and gravy, you and three quarters of the people in this town over fifty. But your body can’t take it anymore and it’s fighting back. You’re only fifty-four years old, with a lot of good years left, if you take care of yourself.”
“I will, Doc, I will.”
“Listen to me, aside from the way this food is tearing up your gallbladder, what do you think it’s doing to your arteries? Do you want to end up like my dad?”
Harry shook his head, made a hasty sign of the cross. “Poor Nick Senior.”
“He was less than fifty feet from his men and he couldn’t call for help, not that anybody could have done anything for him. But at least he wouldn’t have died alone.” Even now, after all this time, Nick hated to think of his father, lying in the snow, half-frozen, dead from a massive heart attack. He still remembered the pickups, traveling down the long gravel driveway, inching forward, headlights dim, like a funeral procession, converging on the old, white farmhouse where Nicholas Androvich Sr. and his wife, Stella, lived with their three children. His mother had run outside, wiping her hands on the printed apron she always wore. He’s hurt, isn’t he? He’s tried to take down a tree by himself and got hurt, didn’t he? Is it his leg? His arm? Her words grew louder, the pitch more hysterical. Where is he? Where? Nick! Nick! Damn you, Nick, for taking foolish chances! We’ve got three kids to raise! Uncle Frank, Nick Sr.’s brother jumped out of the first truck, pulled her away and said something to her. Nick Jr. watched from the top step of the wraparound porch as his mother’s legs buckled and she fell into Uncle Frank’s arms like a rag doll that’s had the stuffing pulled out of it.