Three-Day Town

Or why.

As she sinks onto a cushion on the floor she recognizes why this theft is doubly satisfying. He will not be able to report his loss or even accuse one of them. The piece is modern and much too crude to be valuable, but even if it were, he cannot risk the questions a description of the piece might raise with both the police and the dean.

The South may be mired in the nineteenth century, she thinks, but Stillwater’s dean is a direct descendant of seventeenth-century Puritans.

CHAPTER

1

Neither is it the place to get the best cab accommodations. The horses are street-car derelicts, the harness gives evidence of disintegration, the carriage and the shabby unshaven driver are usually the worse for wear. One resolves not to be bothered by such small matters.

—

The New New York

, John C. Van Dyke, 1909

Dwight paced the kitchen, muttering about school buses that clog our morning roads and how we were going to miss our train if I didn’t quit dawdling and what the hell was taking me so long, but I had a mental list of what had to be done before we could leave and I was determined to check every item twice even though we were a couple of weeks past Christmas and I wasn’t Santa Claus.

Cal and a week’s worth of clean clothes over to Kate and Rob’s. Check.

Bandit and a week’s worth of terrier chow to Daddy. Check.

Amtrak tickets in Dwight’s jacket pocket. Check.

Keys to Kate’s Manhattan apartment on both our keychains. Check.

Cosmetics and warm clothes packed. Check.

(“One new wool hat. Check,” whispered the preacher, who lurks on the edge of my subconscious and approves of all things useful.)

(“And one new black negligee,” chortled the pragmatist, who shares the space and has his own opinion as to what is useful.)

All perishables out of the refrigerator. Check.

Gas turned off at the tank. Check.

Thermostat—

“Let’s go, shug.”

“One more minute,” I pleaded. “I know we’re forgetting something important.”

“That’s what phones are for. Anything we forget to do, we can call Mama or one of the boys and they’ll come take care of it.”

True. My brothers and I do have keys to each other’s houses. Nevertheless…

“Dammit, Deborah!”

Reluctantly, I let Dwight herd me out into the frigid winter air.

After a full year of marriage, we were finally going to have a honeymoon. His sister-in-law Kate’s first husband had been a successful investment banker on Wall Street. After Jake’s death, she had moved down to his family farm here in our neighborhood, where she met and married Dwight’s younger brother Rob, a Raleigh attorney. She had kept the apartment in Manhattan, though, and rented it furnished to a Frenchman whose business interests took him to Europe several times a year. Part of the rental agreement was that Kate would have the use of the apartment whenever he was away, which was how she could give us a week in New York as a Christmas present.

“January may not be the best time of year,” Rob had teased us, “but you’ll have your love to keep you warm.”

We were in Dwight’s pickup and halfway down our long driveway before I finally remembered.

“That package!” I cried. “We have to go back! I forgot Mrs. Lattimore’s package.”

He kept his foot on the gas. “No, you didn’t. Your suitcase looked pretty full, so I stuck it in mine.”

Relieved, I leaned back in my seat and watched the sun edge up over the horizon. It sparkled on frost-covered fields planted in winter rye and turned bare oak branches into lacy Victorian silhouettes against the early morning sky as Dwight pointed the truck toward Raleigh. He glanced over at me and smiled.

“You look like a kid on her way to a party.”

I smiled back at him. “That’s exactly how I feel.”

Most of the time I love my life, but a whole week with no work and no family? Just Dwight and me alone together in New York? A long-bed Chevy pickup is nothing like a pumpkin coach, but I really did feel like Cinderella on her way to a ball.

Best of all, my happily-ever-after Prince Charming was driving the horses.

The Amtrak station lies on the south side of Raleigh and it was crowded with passengers waiting for the Silver Star. Although today would be my very first train trip, I had already decided it was better than flying.

Dwight found a space for the truck just a few steps from the station door. No parking decks or fees. No security lines, no taking off our shoes, no X-raying of luggage, although I wouldn’t have minded seeing what was inside the small package we were taking to New York for Jane Lattimore, one of Kate’s elderly connections.