The cookout was being held at Byerly’s ball field, which had been paid for by and named after the Walters. This early in the spring, the grass was still green, the bleachers and fence were freshly painted for Little League season, and the red clay parking lot wasn’t too dusty yet. A slew of people were there ahead of us, and we could smell the charcoal and lighter fluid from the grills as soon as we got out of the car.
“Should we have brought something?” I asked Aunt Maggie.
“Nope. Big Bill’s paying for everything.”
“He really does want to sell the mill,” I said. I’d never heard of him spending a penny he didn’t have to.
“He should know better than to think he can impress us with a bunch of hamburgers and hot dogs,” Aunt Maggie said with a sniff. “This is nothing but an excuse for those Yankees to try and convince us that they’re just plain folks.”
“Then why did you come?”
“I like hamburgers as much as the next person, and if Big Bill Walters is fool enough to waste his money, I’d just as soon he wasted it on me as anybody else.”
“Aren’t you going to try to sway his opinion?” Richard said. “ ‘When a world of men could not prevail with all their oratory, yet hath a woman’s kindness overruled.’ Henry VI, Part One, Act II, Scene 2.”
I didn’t know about kindness, but there’d been talk in the family about Aunt Maggie and Big Bill ever since the time they went out dancing, especially after he was spotted visiting the flea market where she did business.
But Aunt Maggie said, “That man wouldn’t know good advice if it walked up and bit him.”
In other words, she’d already tried to change his mind and hadn’t had any luck.
The field was enclosed by a chain-link fence, and as we got to the gate, we saw a cluster of people stopped there.
“Lord love a duck,” Aunt Maggie said in disgust. “They’ve set up a receiving line. ‘Just plain folks,’ my tail end!”
Aunt Maggie grumbled as we waited to be greeted by Big Bill Walters, Burt, and a couple that had to be the Saunders, but after all the buildup, I was glad for the chance to meet the prospective buyers. I’m afraid I stared openly at them, trying to get a feel for what they were like. It looked as if Aunt Maggie was right about them not being “just plain folks,” at least not by Byerly definitions. For one thing, though the tailored red suit Grace Saunders was wearing was very chic, it was way too formal for a cookout. Besides, one look at her was enough to tell me that she wasn’t really interested in polite chitchat. There was something about the precise cut of her jet-black hair, and the firm handshake she was giving the man she’d just been introduced to. Maybe it was just the look in her eye—I’ve seen that look on plenty of businesswomen in Boston. It wasn’t ruthless or cruel necessarily, but it was the look of somebody out to make the best deal possible.
Marshall Saunders looked more friendly, but I think he felt less comfortable than his wife did, even though his khakis and polo shirt were far more appropriate for a cookout. The way he stood and held his hands, and the way he kept looking around and tugging at his sandy blond beard were oddly familiar, but it took me a minute to put my finger on it. Then I whispered to Richard, “He’s a computer geek.”
“How can you tell?”
“He just looks like a computer geek. Can’t you picture him working at my office?”
“You might be right,” Richard said.
Then Burt saw the three of us. “Why if it isn’t Miz Burnette! And you’ve brought Laurie Anne and Richard! I didn’t know y’all were in town.”
I thought he was overplaying it, but nobody else seemed to notice.
“Hello, Burt,” Aunt Maggie said. “Y’all picked a nice day for this shindig.”
“Didn’t we though?” he said, beaming as though he’d arranged it himself. “A bright beginning, wouldn’t you say?”
“We’ll see,” Aunt Maggie said, and moved on to Big Bill.
“Hey, Mr. Walters,” I said to Burt. “I hope y’all don’t mind Richard and me crashing your party.”
“Not at all,” he said cheerfully, and I had a hunch he was resisting the temptation to slip us a sly wink as he gave me a social peck on the cheek and shook Richard’s hand. Aunt Maggie had Big Bill tied up, so Burt bypassed them to go to the Saunders. “Marshall, Grace, let me introduce two members of one of our most prominent families: Laurie Anne and Richard Fleming. Laurie Anne’s late mama was one of the Burnette girls.”
Marshall murmured, “Pleased to meet you,” as Grace put out her hand for shaking. I’m never sure how hard to shake another woman’s hand. Some prefer a light clasp, while others must work on their grip the way men do. Grace fell somewhere in between, no doubt appropriate for a businesswoman. “Do you both work at the mill?” she asked.
“We don’t live in Byerly,” I explained “We’re visiting from Boston. Didn’t I hear that you two were from up our way?”
She looked surprised, and I could almost see her recalculating our place in her plans. “Wellesley, actually.”
That figured. Wellesley was a lovely town, but it had a reputation for being highfalutin, and since some people moved there to be highfalutin themselves, the reputation stuck. “We’re in the Back Bay,” I said.
“So you’re not in the hosiery business?”
“No, Richard teaches at Boston College.”
“Economics? Business?” she asked hopefully.
“Shakespeare,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, and I could tell she was mentally filing him as someone she didn’t need to know. “And you, Laurie Anne?”
“Just Laura. I’m a programmer.”
She nodded politely, probably thinking that I wouldn’t be useful to her either, but Marshall perked up.
“What kind of programming do you do?” he asked.
“PC-based, mostly database management software. I work at GBS in Cambridge.”
“I’ve heard of you guys.”
“You do consulting, don’t you?”
He nodded. “I can’t seem to stick with one product—once it’s developed, I get bored.”
“What Marshall means is that his talents are wasted on day-to-day maintenance,” Grace said hurriedly, obviously trying to put a more positive spin on it for the Walters’ benefit.
Aunt Maggie broke in long enough to say, “I’ll catch up with you two later on,” and then wandered onto the field. Grace turned her attention to a mill supervisor who’d come up to speak to the Walters, and I could see that Richard was listening to their conversation.
“Have you been at GBS long?” Marshall asked me.
“Ever since college,” I said.
“Harvard?”
“No, that’s my husband’s alma mater. I went to the technical school across town.”
“M.I.T.,” he said approvingly. “I went to Harvard for computer science, but I would have loved to go to M.I.T.”
“Why didn’t you?” If his grades had been good enough to get him into Harvard, surely he could have gotten into M.I.T.
“Saunders men always go to Harvard,” he said wistfully.
“So how did you go from computers to management consultant?” I asked, hoping the question sounded light.
“My wife’s idea, actually,” he said, which didn’t surprise me. “I enjoyed the programming, but she saw that it wasn’t giving me enough scope, and that I could better apply what I’d learned as a consultant.”
“And now you’re an up-and-coming industrialist.”
“Grace’s idea again. She heard about Walters Mill, and saw it as an opportunity for both of us. I’d probably have been happy to stay a consultant, but now that I’m here, I see a lot of room for modernization and applying new techniques.”
“Really?” If he’d announced that to the rank and file, it was no wonder people were upset. Nobody likes an outsider telling them how to do their jobs.
“You wouldn’t believe how primitive the mill’s inventory system is, not to mention billing. They actually use index cards—I didn’t know they still made index cards.”
Being in favor of computerizing that kind of thing myself, I had to laugh.
“And their record-keeping. All the data are there, but there’s no system to it. No graphs, no statistics—no attempt has ever been made to compile the kind of performance data that can help pinpoint areas for change. I’ve spent all week entering in data, and only have the start of a reasonable database. Grace and I really have our work cut out for us.”
“You sound pretty confident that the sale will go through.”
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t. Walters wants to sell, we want to buy. The rest is just details.”
“You’re not worried about labor opposition?”
He looked blank. “That’s Grace’s department.”
I had to keep myself from wincing. Marshall was a nice guy, but from the way he talked, he was like a lot of computer types I’d met. His expertise was numbers and technology—he was completely oblivious to the people involved. I wondered if he had the slightest idea why they were having a cookout.
Next he went into a description of the technical details of what he was doing, but even I had trouble following him. Eventually he noticed that my eyes were glazing over, and said, “Let me run out to the car and get my laptop so I can show you what I’m talking about.”
Grace must have heard him, because she said, “Can you hold that thought, Marshall? There are some people I want you to meet.”
He reluctantly moved to her side, and Richard and I took that as an opportunity to leave.
“What do you think?” Richard asked, once we were out of earshot.
“Maybe they can help the mill,” I said.
“None of that,” he said, wagging a finger at me. “We’re not supposed to make that kind of judgment, remember? Our only job is to determine whether or not the Saunders are trustworthy.”
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s just hard to separate the issues.” I thought about what I’d seen of the couple. “Marshall seemed honest enough. He was talking pretty openly about what he’d been doing, and even wanted to show me his graphs.”
“Show you his graphs?” Richard said in horror. “I’m shocked that he’d even make such a suggestion.”
I poked him in the side. “Anyway, he sure didn’t act as if he had anything to hide. Grace, on the other hand… She strikes me as somebody looking for the main chance. Not that that makes her dishonest, but she sure is focused.”
“She has a lean and hungry look,” Richard said, “if you’ll excuse the adaptation of Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2.”
“Just this once,” I said. “Did your eavesdropping confirm my impression?”
“It did, and it was fascinating to watch. When Grace met a person, she immediately determined how important he or she is and acted accordingly. With city leaders, she was perfectly charming, but with mill workers, her charm was directly proportional to rank. She fawned over supervisors and union representatives, but was merely polite to anybody else. She’s focused, all right, and I think she’d do a lot to get her way.”
Of course, all businesspeople want to make the best deal possible. The question was, would Grace merely cut a few corners to get that deal, or would she do something actively unethical? “They’re kind of a mismatched couple, aren’t they? A computer geek and a yuppie from Hell.”
“Almost as bad as a Southern computer programmer and a Yankee English professor,” Richard said.
“Touché. I guess opposites really do attract.” I gave him a thorough kiss to remind him that our attraction was still alive and well.