“I didn't know Penny Bartlett was Alden Spaulding's half sister," Faith said to Tom that evening as he got ready to leave the house for a session of Town Meeting.
He'd been an elected Town Meeting member since he'd arrived at First Parish. He thought it would be a good way to get to know Aleford and its inhabitants. Besides, Fairchilds always sat at their local Town Meetings, guarding their seats and passing them down as lovingly as they did their season's tickets to Celtics games at Boston Garden.
“You really should ask someone else for the details, but I think Alden's mother died when he was about seven or eight and his father married Penny's mother, who was much younger and a neighbor, in rather indecent haste:'
“Probably needed someone to cook and do the wash," Faith said.
“I don't think so. He was comfortable, as we New Englanders like to say, and could have hired any number of housekeepers."
“ `Comfortable,' which means something akin to rich as Croesus. No, he wouldn't need to cut costs. Maybe he wanted a mother for little Alden. Then again, given the evidence of their offspring, it's probable that the first Mrs. Spaulding wasn't up for the title of Mrs. Congeniality and he may simply have wanted a pleasant spouse."
“Possibly. Penny's mother, his second wife, died long before I came here, but there are plenty of parishioners who remember her, and I've always heard her mentioned with great affection. No one mentions Alden's mother. Since Alden's father was active in the congregation and Alden, too, in his own inimitable way, I'd imagine she must have attended, although perhaps she was an invalid of some sort.”
Faith thought they ought to get off the subject of the Bartletts. Alden's participation in the congregation, along with a decent-sized pledge, took the less welcome form of line-by-line sermon critiques and objections to the amount of money spent on social concerns. He seemed to regard his tithe as an entitlement.
“What's on the agenda tonight?" she asked. Faith had no desire to attend Town Meeting, yet she liked to know what was going on. It made the old Tammany Hall look like a Brownie Scout troop.
“The library budget. I could be late, very late. Our friend Alden, who is maintaining a very high pre-election profile these days, has submitted an alternate resolution calling for drastic cuts in staff and hours. He wants the library closed weekends and Wednesdays. The rationale for this being that people read too much and should be out getting some exercise instead, which costs the town nothing. Oh, and he wants to eliminate the library aides and have patrons reshelve their own books when they return them."
“I know we have to cut, but this is ridiculous. Surely no one will vote with him."
“I wish I could be certain. There's a strong feeling in town that spending is out of control, and a sizable contingent sees Alden first and foremost as a successful business manager. These are the people who will vote with—and for—him. Enough philosophizing. We need someone who knows dollars and cents-type stuff. We do have to cut the budget, but not with a machete."
“Have fun. I don't envy you." Faith kissed her husband and sent him off with his shield. She only hoped he would not come home on it.
Aleford had resolutely resisted the blandishments of the local cable television franchise. No one could see the point of paying perfectly good money for extra television channels when they already had more than they wanted to watch. Yet when the company offered to broadcast Town Meeting on its local access station, quite a few heads were turned. No more sitting in the hard seats up in the balcony of the Town Hall, straining to hear what the members below were debating. No more listening to embarrassing stomach rumbles, as no food was allowed in the hall. The cable TV proposal had come up at last year's Town Meeting and lost by a whisker. But with the added incentive of the election—the company had promised to film candidates' forums and live ballot counting—it was sure to pass this time, unless Millicent McKinley could rally a few more Town Meeting members to her camp. The cable proposal, she declared, was one more example of the moral turpitude rapidly creeping into all aspects of everyday life. It was positively indecent to think of such a hallowed tradition as Town Meeting being broadcast to people who might be doing Lord knows what as they watched. She had heard of homes where a television was actually in the bedroom! If someone wanted to know what was going on at Town Meeting, he or she could go to Town Hall just like all the elected members. It was a question of simple equilibrium, she stated. Though people weren't too clear what she meant by the phrase, it sounded good and they didn't doubt her sincerity.
Faith had waited up for Tom and he was late. She'd been reading M. F. K. Fisher's The Gastronomical Me in bed and got up to get him something to eat when she heard the car pull into the driveway. She'd been stunned when she first learned that they had to sit all those hours without any form of nourishment. "An awful lot of people chew gum:' Tom had told her. "Sometimes I look around and feel like I've been put out to pasture with a herd of malcontented cows."
“I'm almost, but not quite, too tired to eat," he said, collapsing at the kitchen table in anticipation.
Faith was mixing beaten eggs, chopped green onion, crisp, smoky bacon, and Parmesan cheese into some spaghetti she'd cooked earlier and set aside. She poured the mixture into a frying pan with some hot olive oil and spread it out to form a large, flat mass. "Did Alden's amendment win?"
“Praise the Lord, no, but he got more votes than I would have expected. I think I'll pay a call on Penelope tomorrow and add my voice to the swelling chorus urging her to run. She looked slightly confused and blushed a couple of times when people passing her to go to the john or whatever leaned down to whisper in her ear. I'd say the campaign to get our Penny to throw her bonnet into the ring is on with a vengeance."
“Nice to know you're not getting too involved in all this, darling." Faith smiled at him as she deftly slid the golden brown frittata onto a plate and flipped it back into the pan to cook on the other side.
Two days later, Penelope Bartlett entered the race, which came as no surprise. The surprise was James Heuneman's appearance at the town clerk's office and his demand for nomination papers the same afternoon.
This time, it was Millicent who carried the news. Faith was beginning to think she should put some tables and chairs in her catering kitchen, since so many people seemed to regard it as an outpost of the Minuteman Café. Millicent was ostensibly there to get Faith to sign up to work on Penny Bartlett,'s campaign.
“A spoiler, plain and simple. James Heuneman knew that Penny intended to run!" Millicent bit down viciously on the large oatmeal raisin cookie Faith had the good manners to offer her with a cup of coffee.
“Won't he take votes away from Alden rather than Penny? He's a businessman of some sort, too, isn't he? I would have thought he represented the same constituency."
“He's a lawyer, not that it matters. What he'll do is take votes away from both of them and 'n all likelihood win. People who think Alden is a little beyond the pale but has some good ideas regarding fiscal matters '11 vote for James, and people who think Penny is nice bum_ a bit too liberal—not to mention being a woman—will vote for Heuneman, too. That's why we've got to do everything we can to help her get elected. I'm putting you down for leafleting and telephone calls. I don't expect you to hold up a sign with all the children you have." Millicent made it sound as if Faith was the old woman in the shoe or some other wanton.
“But surely, being a woman—and the sole woman to have won the Bronze Musket Award twice in one lifetime—should help her in this day and age." The Bronze Musket Award was given annually to an Aleford citizen who had contributed above and beyond the call of mere duty to the well-being of the town. Recipients were held in special regard, and any citizen given the choice between the tasteful embossed Bronze Musket plaques and the shiny Oscars of the impending Hollywood invasion would not hesitate for a moment to snatch the former.