Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“I’ll call Mr. Wiseheart back now,” I said. “Is noon on Saturday fine with everyone?”

Linda Gail pulled a Kleenex from her purse and dabbed it at her nose. “I always have hay fever in the fall,” she said. She squeezed the Kleenex into a ball and dropped it back into her purse. “Yes, noon on Saturday is just fine, thank you very much.”

THE COUNTRY CLUB’S main building was palatial, the St. Augustine grass a deep blue-green, more like an inland Mediterranean bay than a lawn. The red clay tennis courts, the swimming pool, the manicured golf course seemed testimony to the secret rewards that awaited the adherents of a benevolent patrician deity. “Oh, my,” Linda Gail said in an almost erotic tone as we drove through the gates.

“Yeah, this ain’t no hog farm,” Hershel said.

“Would you not talk like that, please?” she said.

The dining room that had been reserved by Roy Wiseheart and his wife, Clara, overlooked a tennis court where two players in white trousers, one of them a world-ranked professional, were whocking the ball back and forth, glazed with sweat, both playing with smiles that could have been part of a toothpaste promotion. Our table was covered with immaculate Irish linen and set with silver bowls of red roses and Flora Danica dinnerware. The Wisehearts greeted us at the doorway as though our arrival marked a special occasion. Neither seemed embarrassed by their theatrical behavior. I remembered Grandfather’s warning about dealing with people who were not our kind.

The differences between the husband and the wife were soon apparent. Roy Wiseheart was trim, his hair copper-colored and neatly combed, his handshake controlled, his eyes clear, his appearance younger than his years, his expression marked by curiosity rather than by design. There was nothing relaxed about his wife. At the table, there was a tic in her cheek, an irritability in her eyes that gave you the sense that you were the cause of her unhappiness. The fingers of her right hand were constantly moving, the thumb touching each of the tips. She also gave you the disquieting conviction that whatever you said next would prove an unfortunate choice.

She had gold hair and wore a brocaded white dress with small gold buttons. More important, she wore white gloves that she didn’t take off. She kept looking sideways at Rosita.

Her eyes were a liquid blue, her face unnaturally pale to the point of being bloodless, the cheeks rouged. She ate in very small bites, as an anorexic might. She tried to feign interest in the conversation, but her eyes dulled over whenever she looked down at her plate. I had the feeling that Roy Wiseheart’s marital situation was one no man ever wants to find himself in.

“This is sure a nice club,” Linda Gail said. “This dishware is something else, too.”

“We’re happy you could join us,” Wiseheart said. “Mrs. Holland, you have a hint of a British accent. Were you educated overseas?”

“I grew up in Spain. I had a British tutor. My father was a linguist at the University of Madrid.”

“Really? How did you come to meet Mr. Holland?”

“He rescued me from a rather bad situation.”

“And what was that?”

“Hershel was there, too,” Linda Gail said. “If we’re going to tell our stories, let’s tell the whole thing.”

“Beg your pardon?” Wiseheart said.

“I was in the camps,” Rosita said.

“You were a prisoner of the Nazis?” he said.

“You could call it that.”

“Could we change the subject?” Clara Wiseheart said, drinking from her water glass as though cleansing her throat of an unwelcome taste.

“I hope y’all like Houston. It’s an up-and-coming business community,” Wiseheart said. “I expect one day it will be like New York City on the plains.”

“It’s mighty big, that’s for sure,” Linda Gail said. “I bet the jobs go begging. In Bogalusa you could either work at the gin or slaughter chickens.”

Clara Wiseheart touched her temple as though a vein had burst inside her head. She gestured at the waiter. “Please serve dessert now and bring coffee for those who are having it,” she said. Then she stared out the window at the tennis courts, as though willing herself through the glass.

Wiseheart turned his gaze on me and Hershel. “You fellows have gotten the attention of quite a few people. They say your welds may be the best in the business. If you ever think about expanding or merging, I’d like to talk over a couple of possibilities with you.”

“Merging with your corporation?” Hershel said.

“You’d still be in charge of your company. You’d just be under a bigger umbrella. Small business is old business.”

“What do you think, Weldon?” Hershel said.

“We’re loners, Mr. Wiseheart,” I said.

“Nobody is a loner in the oil and natural gas business,” he replied.