Chapter 2

Nobody else thought Linda had been blatant in her sudden friendship with Paul ... except Linda. She’d been on a few dates, and had talked to a ton of boys. But she had never been fascinated with a boy like she was fascinated with Paul. He had been so sweet to her, and so shy that she just wanted to eat him up. She had wanted to kiss him in the worst way, but had not, saving that for their first official date, which she had asked him on after they ate watermelon, and were standing, watching the fireworks show.

She had said, “There’s a new movie showing at the Bijou. I sure wish I knew somebody who wanted to go with me to watch it.”

He’d taken the bait like a starving rat.

“I - I - I’d go with you,” he stammered.

“You would!” she’d squealed. “Oh, I’d like that!”

Paul, who had thought about his erections quite clinically in the past, as he made them go away, almost bent over to hide the one in his pants at that point.

It hadn’t worked, though. She’d seen it. She hadn’t said anything about it, of course, and had pretended to ignore it, but she felt a thrill at having produced it, just like she felt a thrill when she went alone to see Bobby, and he got hard for her too.

Thinking about Bobby made her feel a little better. She could go see him, tonight, and take care of the heat in her belly, as she snuck secretive glances at the front of Paul’s pants. Yes, she thought ... she definitely needed to spend some time with Bobby tonight.

The subject of Linda’s thoughts was also the subject of a discussion that was taking place on the other side of the invisible line that separated Granger’s “proper” citizens, from the “undesirables”.

Bobby’s name came up as a fluke, really, as a result of how the conversation started in the first place. It was being held between twenty-eight year old Felicity Chumley, and her friend from the Country Club, Millie Vaughn. “Country Club” was a euphemism for the old house, on the old farm, that had been bought and turned into a nine hole golf course. A swimming pool and tennis court had been added, and the house refurbished by gutting it, redoing the floor plan, and putting a new exterior on it. It was pretty nice, all things considered, and served excellent food from what had been the farm house kitchen, which had also been completely renovated. Granger’s elite, which comprised some hundred and fifty people who could muster up the dues to become members, liked to think of it as a country club. The dues were high, so as to keep out the riff-raff.

It had been at the country club where Millie, whose husband owned one of two drug stores in town, and Felicity met. Millie was thrilled. Just about everybody in Granger knew of Felicity Chumley, who was the second wife of Chester Chumley, the richest man in town. Barely anyone actually knew her, though.

Chester had inherited wealth, in the form of his father’s steel and pipe business, which had been a mainstay of the town economy for decades. Through savvy business dealings, he had made a ton of money, not only for himself, but for a number of other people in town. Then, at age seventy-three his wife of forty-eight years had died, and all the heart went out of him. He had managed to hold on to his desire to run the business for three more years, and then sold out, making even more money. The new owner had dismantled it and sold off the pieces. It had been a huge blow to the town, but nobody blamed Chester.

Chester, who was born and raised in Granger, stayed in his mansion, on a three hundred acre plot of land, South of town. All he kept, from the company that had been in his family for two generations, was his money, and his secretary, Felicity Hodges.

Felicity grew up Mission, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City, where she was a popular girl, and a cheerleader at Shawnee Mission North High School. She knew she was destined for great things, but her family couldn’t afford college, and her grades weren’t good enough for a scholarship. She managed to pay her way through the Filby Secretarial School, in Kansas City, Missouri, which found her employment with a steel and pipe company in someplace called Granger, Kansas. At the tender age of twenty, she rode a Greyhound bus to Granger, and rented a room at the Dreamland Motor Inn for two nights, paying in advance, because that was all the money she had. When she reported to Chumley Steel and Pipe, the next day, she found out she was working for Chester Chumley, whose wife had died as Felicity was getting off the bus, the day before.

It was madness, from her point of view. Everybody in the place was crying, and nobody wanted anything to do with talking to the new girl. She’d already filled out the paperwork, sending it in advance, and she was already on the payroll. She wouldn’t get paid for a week, assuming anyone was still capable of getting the payroll done, what with all the weeping and gnashing of teeth going on. For lack of anything else to do, she took over the desk that was obviously hers, and dug into whatever work she could puzzle out that needed to be done. She didn’t even see her boss for three days.

Three years later, when Chester sold the business, and asked Felicity to marry him, she was twenty-three, and he was almost seventy-eight.

To be fair to Felicity, which almost nobody was when the wedding took place, she was probably the person who saved Chester from just withering away and dying, following his wife’s death. She didn’t “go after” him, as she was sometimes accused. Nor did she do anything more than care about him, and his loss. That care was genuine, on her part. Chester reminded her of her grandfather, who she had loved with all her heart, and who had died when she was sixteen.

It was her detachment from the tragedy at Chumley Steel and Pipe company that kept the business going for the first month after Chester lost interest in things. She was his executive secretary, which, in itself scandalized veteran employees. She had been sent there by mistake, obviously. An executive secretary was older ... more experienced ... not a blond bombshell, with an hourglass figure. She ignored all that, and demanded action, on behalf of Chester Chumley. When shipments were delayed, she raked the shipping clerk over the coals. When payroll was late, she ordered the payroll clerk to work overtime. When people ignored her, or, worse yet, defied her, she typed up memos, and took them to Chester, who signed them, more often than not, without reading them.

At the same time, she took care of Chester. She made him eat. She took him home each night, afraid that he’d crash into a telephone pole on purpose, if she didn’t. He had servants who could take care of him at home, and who resented the questions of this interloper they didn’t know. They resented her so much that they took extra care in doing their jobs, just so she would have nothing to harp about.

She talked to him, and listened to his stories about his wife, and all the things they’d done together. They were childless, which was another nail in his coffin. He had no one to pass the company on to. She sat with him while he cried, and patted his hand, handing him tissues.

Basically, while everyone else around him pulled back, for fear of getting personally involved in his grief, Felicity put herself close to him, because she felt sorry for him, and liked him.

There was never any hanky panky. Felicity wouldn’t have thought of doing it in the first place, and Chester couldn’t bear to think of soiling the memory of his wife. No one could say they’d seen her do anything untoward, or flirty, or seductive.

She was his sounding board when he decided to sell the business, and did all the paperwork herself, checking and double checking the contracts, to make sure what was promised in talks would actually happen. She was the one who arranged severance packages for those who didn’t want to work for the new owner. Later, many people would find out about that and rue the day they’d decided to stay. They’d find out that, if they hadn’t hated Felicity Hodges, they’d have listened to her warnings, and would have been much better off.

When Chester Chumley asked for her hand in marriage ... no one was more surprised than Felicity Hodges.

It was not an easy decision for her to make. The jaded might think she’d jump at the chance to marry all that money, especially since her new husband’s days were numbered. But that wasn’t how Felicity thought about things. She had spent so much time on her job and boss in the three years she worked for him, that her social life was non-existent. Even if she’d had time to date, it was unlikely anyone would have asked her out. She was “The Bitch”, informally, if people were even that nice when they talked about her. That changed to “The Vampire Bitch” when word of his proposal got out. People weren’t all that careful about how loudly they said it, either. The new owner was bringing his own staff with him, so the Vampire Bitch wouldn’t be there to torment them any more.

She knew that no one would ever leave her alone, if she married the poor man. She knew she’d be hated forever. At the same time, she was without a job, without a place to live, and without prospects, since only Chester could write her a recommendation, and that recommendation would be suspect, if anyone found out about his marriage proposal. She knew what people thought. They thought she’d already had sex with him. Potential employers would think that too.

Chester wouldn’t listen to anybody either, though many of those jaded people mentioned before tried to convince him he’d been duped, or scammed, and that all she was after was his money.

Chester, however, knew this girl. He knew her better than anybody else in the company. He knew she was a caring, sensitive woman, who was hurt by the way she was treated. He may not have been interested in running the business, for the last three years, but he wasn’t blind, or deaf. He knew who had kept things going, and he knew it wasn’t him.

He also knew he didn’t have much time left, and, after three years of mourning, he decided he was going to sit back with a pretty, sweet girl, and enjoy what he could.

The overriding thing in Felicity’s mind, and the thing on which her decision hinged, was that she just liked him. He was a dear, sweet man, who’d been crushed, but had struggled back up. She didn’t care about his money. She just liked him. And, to be honest, she, like Chester, assumed his time was probably short anyway. She could always start over with a man her own age, when Chester went to his rest. She didn’t really think about the money. Not then. Chester had never put on airs, and so she’d never thought of him as “one of those rich people.”

So she’d said “Yes”, and become Felicity Chumley.

She also became suddenly rich, beyond her wildest dreams, which just couldn’t be ignored once she moved into the mansion.

That hadn’t been the fur-lined basket she’d thought it would be. She had been right that people would hate her, and be jealous of her. She ignored that, and found new pursuits to use her intensity on. She and Chester started a scholarship program for the young people in town to take advantage of, if they wanted to go to college. It wasn’t a giveaway program, but required good grades, and a willingness to work hard. They took over sponsoring the fourth of July fireworks extravaganza, which was a real relief to the town fathers, smarting by then under the loss of steel and pipe, and the revenue it had put into the town coffers, before it was disassembled. She loaned money to a young couple who started the first Humane Society office the town had ever had, and made other small business loans to people trying to better their lives.

And, over the four years since she had been married to Chester, opinion had gradually softened. Not completely, but no one called her a bitch any more. She still spent most of her time with Chester, and had few social contacts. Her decision to join the country club was an effort to ease the loneliness in her life, and advance, if possible, the glimmerings of good will she sensed being extended toward her.

When she met Millie, who treated her with respect, she reached out to her too.

It was as Felicity and Millie were watching the fireworks extravaganza, and chatting, that Bobby’s name came up. Felicity had seemed distracted all night. Chester was ill, and hadn’t come to the celebration, so Millie thought that might be what was bothering her.

“You’re worried about him, aren’t you?” said Millie.

“What?” Felicity looked at her. “Who? Chester? No, he’s just feeling his age, mostly. He gets tired so easily. I think he’s stretching the truth about being sick so he didn’t have to come out and glad-hand everybody. I think he’ll be fine.”

“Well, what’s wrong, then?” asked Millie. “You’ve been somewhere else half the night, and you haven’t left my side.”

Felicity shrugged. “Its nothing, really. My ten year High School reunion is in two weeks.”

“Well that’s wonderful!” said Millie. “Just imagine how impressed everybody will be when they find out you’ve done so well for yourself.”

“That’s just it,” said Felicity. “I know how lucky I am. I know Chester loves me, and I really love him too...”

“But...” prompted Millie.

Felicity frowned. “I can’t take Chester there. First off, he already said no. He doesn’t like to travel. Second, no matter how much I love him, I’d be a laughing stock. You know that. I didn’t care ... here ... where my home is, but I know it would bother me with my old friends. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help it. Still, I feel awful.”

“So, go alone, dressed to the nines, with enough diamonds on to blind them all,” said Millie. That’s what she would have done.

“I can’t do that either,” said Felicity. “It wouldn’t work. Most of them were rich when I went to school with them, and are probably doing as well as I am now.”

“I doubt that, seriously,” said Millie.

“You don’t know them,” said Felicity. “They’ve had money all their lives. Money doesn’t mean the same thing to them that it does to people like you and me.”