Part 4 (1/2)

Carl was moody, something he never used to be. She couldn't believe that it all related to Norwich Notch, but when she asked him If there was something else, he denied it. She felt awful. She didn't want him angry, any more than she wanted him hurt. She didn't see why he was either. She didn't see why her interest in Norwich Notch bothered him at all, since anything that came of that interest would only enrich her as a person.

”Maybe it's loyalty to my father,” she said, because that was the only thing she could think of. ”He reacts to my dad like he does to his own.

There's the same need to please.”

”And your dad doesn't like what's happening?”

”Not much.” They rounded a corner and separated to skirt a row of trash cans. When they were running in tandem again, Chelsea said, ”Actually, that , an understatement. Norwich Notch is a thorn in is side. A very sharp thorn.”

”That's a sign.”

”Could be,” Chelsea conceded. ”Why do you tell him about it?”

”I don't. Carl does.”

”d.a.m.n it, why does Carl do it?” ”He says he's trying to save me.”

”By irritating your dad?” ”Alienating is more the word. But when I said that to Carl, he brushed it off. He says Dad loves me. Like he does. That they both want me to be happy. That Norwich Notch is trouble.”

”Sounds like they're avoiding the real issue.” 90 The Faswom of Chelaw KMW ”Which is?”

”Jealousy. They want your time and affection. They don't want to share you with the past.” . Chelsea knew there was truth to what Cydra had said'and she was torn. She wanted to please Kevin. She wanted to please Carl. But she kept returning to the issue of pleasing herself, and selfish as it was, she couldn't shake it. Norwich Notch represented everything she'd always wanted to know about herself but had deferred.

After thirty-seven years, she was growing impatient. For that reason, with as little fanfare as possible short of slinking off in the dark, she joined Bob for a meeting with Oliver Plum in Norwich Notch. Itl was the first of May. Spring came later to'New Hamps.h.i.+re than to states farther south; the buds on the trees were just beginning to open. The tulips were in bloom on the town green, though, as were lavender rhododendrons, pink dogwood, and white andromeda, and people were there, enjoying the sun. , With Bob driving the rental car, Chelsea was free to look, and look she did, trying to take everything in at once. There were window boxes on front porches and swing sets in backyards. There were flags flying-some patriotic, some purely decorative-from many of the houses they pa.s.sed. The street with the house marked PLUM GRmrre compmy looked different, too. The gra.s.s was greener, the locusts a pretty pale lime, the forsythia bright yellow, the evergreens fresh. In the driveway were the Escort and the Blazer. The motorcycle was missing, which meant that Hunter Love wasn't there. Likewise Judd Streeter and the truck. 91 swimm Doungky Chelsea felt a trace of disappointment. She had pretty much guessed that Judd wouldn't be there, since what they were discussing with Oliver was private. Still, a tiny part of her had hoped to catch a glimpse of him. Just a glimpse. That would be enough to jump-start her fantasies. Judd Streeter was potent stuff. Pus.h.i.+ng aside the thoyght, she concentrated on the meeting with Oliver. He had his own lawyer along, a man named Jeremiah Whip, who, Chelsea decided immediately, was too young to have been involved in her adoption. Once they were all seated-Chelsea and Bob on straight-back chairs, Jeremiah on a folding chair that had been brought in from the front officeoliver blurted out, ”I won't sell. You can make whatever offers you want, but if that's all you got to say, you wasted your time on the trip. I won't sell. And that's that.” His face settled into the scowl that seemed its natural expression. Bob kept his cool. ”Yes, Mr. Plum, you've already told me that. Actually, I'm surprised that you invited us up here.”

”I didn't invite you. You invited yourself.”

”But you didn't say no.”

”It's your time, your money. You want to waste it, that's your choice.”

”We don't feel it's a waste. The waste would be if this company went down the drain. That's where it's headed, and you know it. That's why you're listening to what we have to say.”

”I'm not hearing much yet,” Oliver groused in a way that came close to being amusing. In fact, the more Chelsea thought about it, there was something of the caricature to him.

With his beanpole 92 nic FAffstmo of Cbefima KMW u Id and the backward slick of his thinning gray i hair, his bony nose and thin line of a mouth, he was the died4n-the-wool Yankee resentful of change. While Bob repeated the offers he had previously made and the arguments in their favor, Chelsea's eye wandered to the photographs on the wall. All were black and white. Most had to do with the business. They had the primitive quality-thick dark clothing, facial expressions ranging from grim to grimmer, a certain technical flatness-that suggested they had been taken around the turn of the century. In one, half a dozen men were frozen looking up from the boulder they were getting ready to move. In another, a stiff row of workers stood before a dinosaur of a bulldozer.

In a third, the quarry itself was the subject, a large gray striated canvas on which the men were little bigger than ants. Oliver's voice cut into her study. ”We boring you, missy?” Chelsea's gaze flew to his face, and for an instant she felt duly reprimanded. Then she caught herself and said without apology, ”I'm admiring your pic-, tures. They certainly give the feeling that this business has been around for a while. Who ran it before you?”

”y older brother, for three years, until he was run over by a truck. And don't say how sorry you are. It happened fifty years ago. I forget what he looked like.” Chelsea thought that either Oliver Plum was a sad excuse for a human being, or he was lying. She couldn't imagine anyone being that hard. ”Who ran the business before him?”

”My father. And his father before him. And his uncle before him.

Any more questions?” 93 Barbara Definsky ”Yes,” she said. ”Who'll run it after you?” His mouth spasmed in a perversion of a smile. ”That's what we were discussing. If you weren't so busy sight-seeing, you'da known that.” She folded her hands in her lap. ”You have my full attention now, Mr. Plum. Go on.” When he didn't say anything, just continued to stare, she turned to Bob with both brows raised expectantly. ”Was someone saying something?”

”I want to know what's in this for you,” Oliver snapped. Chelsea pointed to herself. ”For me?”

Silent and unyielding, Oliver held her gaze. a.s.suring herself that if he knew who she was and what she was after, he would have said something before, she said, ”A profit. What else would I want?”

”I don't know.

That's why I'm asking. Seems to me if you're after a profit, you can get it bigger and easier somewheres else.- ”But I like granite.” He snorted.

”What do you know about granite? You're an artist.”

”Architect.”

”Same difference. You don't know nothing about business.”

”I daresay I know as much as you do.”

”And quarrying? You know as much as I do about that?

You know how to drive a crane? Or work n jack drill? Or get yourself down over a hundred feei of ledge without killing yourself? Know what a dog hook is? Or a wedge and a feather? Ever felt the heat of a cutting torch with a ten-foot-long flame?” Chelsea wasn't put off. ”I'm not proposing to work the quarry myself-”

”I do,” he boomed. 94 7he PWOMIMM ofcangs” Kane She ignored the interruption. ”A good executive , good people for that. You have good people, ,,”'What you lack is money and direction. I'm saying I ”can provide both.”

”I'm saying it doesn't make sense. And don't talk 46 me about a profit. Even if I did let you buy- ”-,@whlch I won't-it'd be a long time bfore you saw @My of that.”

”A year,” she said. ”I can turn things around in a year. ”Ba-loney.”

”And in the process,” she went on, ”I can employ a lot more of the men in town than you're paying now. If you care about Norwich Notch, you ought to listen to what I'm saying. Keep on as you are, and in a year's time Plum Granite will be even more of a shadow of its former self than it is now. There will be less work for fewer men, and less money for the town.

Everyone loses. Sell to me, and everyone wins. You'll have a tidy sum of money in your pocket ' people of Norwich Notch will have tidy sums In their pockets and in the bank, which will certainly please your banker.

And Plum Granite will be on its feet again.”

”'T'll take longer than a year for that.” She shook her head. ”One year.” He made a short, shooing gesture, as he might to a fly. ”Go home. You got no call to be here. You don't belong.” - Chelsea felt an irrational hurt, as though his telling her to leave was an echo of the rejection she'd suffered within hours of her birth. But she hadn't come this far to suffer or to run.

Determinedly she settled onto her chair. The room was quiet. Chelsea stared at Oliver. He 95 Anybarn D9dm9AW stared right back, but she'd be d.a.m.ned if she would be the first to look away. Oliver Plum didn't have a monopoly on stubbornness. She had plenty of her own, and she didn't care what arguments he made, she wanted Plum Granite. Jeremiah Whip cleared his throat. He looked uneasily at Oliver, then at Bob. ”There may be a way we can talk business with you,” he said in a timid voice. ”We can't deny that Plum Granite needs money.- ”We can do fine without,” Oliver barked. Jeremiah shot him a nervous look. His fingers rose from his thigh in a furtive hus.h.i.+ng gesture. He looked back at Bob. ”My client is not prepared sell the company at this time. It's been in his family for too long. It's his whole life.” Chelsea didn't like the way he directed himself to Bob when she was the one with the money. So she said, ”He could retire nicely on what he makes from a sale.”

”I'm not retiring,” Oliver vowed. ”How old are you?” she asked. ”If you'd done your homework, you'd know that.”

”I know how old the company is, and that's what I'm proposing to buy, not you.”

”Well, I did my homework. I know how old you are, and who your family is, and where you got your money.

It's just sitting there in a big trust fund makin' you itchy, so you decided to play with us. Well, I won't be played with.” '”No one's playing,” she said somberly. Nothing to do with Norwich Notch was play material, as far as she was concerned. If Oliver had gone a step farther in his homework, he'd have learned that. Then again, he couldn't have learned something that 96 The ra.s.skns Of Cbwsea KNW wasn't doc.u.mented, which was one of the very reasons Chelsea was in Norwich Notch. ”if I put up my money, I want a return-and Plum Granite won't be the first company I've done that for. If I made a habit of investing. in losers, I'd have run through that trust fund years ago. ”You're barkin' up the wrong tree if you think granite's a winner., Field's just about dead since gla.s.s and steel took over.” Had Chelsea been in another profession, she might have believed him, but she saw construction from the inside. She knew of the plans being drawn up for buildings that the public wouldn't see for another two years. She was in the forefront of design. ”That's where you're wrong. We're heading for a resurgence in traditionalism. Granite is bouncing back, and not only as an exterior building material. People want granite in kitchens and bathrooms.”

”Pooh,” he sputtered. ”That's small stuff. No profit in that.”

”Which shows how far off the mainstream you are,” she argued. The man was beginning to get to her. ”Do you have any idea how much people are willing to pay for granite counters in their designer kitchens? Or the kind of profit that can be made selling high-quality granite to luxury hotels for use in their bathrooms? Each unit may be physically small, but it can command a premium price. Of course, you won't see a cent of that, set up as you are now. You cut crude slabs of granite and s.h.i.+p them out, letting someone else cut and polish and make the profit. You may be a great quarryman, Mr. Plum, but as a businessman, you stink.” He flattened his forearms on his desk. ”You have a sharp tongue.” 97 marbom Definshy She sat forward. ”I also have a sharp mind. Between the two, I can turn this company around.”

”In a pig's eye,” he bl.u.s.tered.

”It's your money I need, not you.” She glared at him. ”You can't have one without the other. I'm the key to getting business.” He glared right back. ”And I'm the key to quarrying the stone. Without a Plum in charge, nothing gets done.”

”Looks like nothing's been done with a Plum in charge,” she said because though Oliver Plum might have been her elder, he was too bullheaded for subtlety. ”The fact is that you'd never be able to keep up with the business I bring in.”

”Wro-ng, missy. Fact is you wouldn't be able to bring in enough business to keep my men busy.”