"So, did you folks see the Sold sign on the Feltons' place?"
"No! Since when?"
"Since this morning, Tom Hardison tells us. We'll ask Jeff Pitt when he and Marsha get here; he'll know what's what."
"The poor Feltons! We still can't get over it!"
"Lots of questions still unanswered there, for sure. Where d'you want this smoked bluefish spread, Deb?"
"In my mouth, just as soon as possible! Here, I'll take it; you guys go get yourself a drink. Hey there, Ashtons!"
PLACE: 908 Cattail Court, Rockfish Reach, Heron Bay Estates, Stratford, Avon County, upper Eastern Shore of Maryland, 21600: an ample and solidly constructed two-story hip-roofed dormer-windowed Dutch-colonial-style dwelling of white brick with black shutters and doors, slate roof, flagstone front walk and porch and patio, on "Rockfish Reach," off Heron Creek, off the Matahannock River, off Chesapeake Bay, off the North Atlantic Ocean, etc.
"So, Doctor Pete, what's your take on the latest bad news from Baghdad?"
"You know what I think, Tom. What all of us ivory-tower-liberal academics think: that we had no business grabbing that tar baby in the first place, but our president lied us into there and now we're stuck with it. Here's to you, friend."
"Yeah, well. Cheers? Hey, Peg, we all love our great new mailboxes! You guys did a terrific job!"
"Didn't they, though? Those old wooden ones were just rotting away."
"And these new cast-metal jobs are even handsomer than the ones in Spartina Pointe. Good work, guys."
"You're quite welcome. Thanks for this, Deb and Pete and everybody. Mmm!"
"So where're the Pitts, I wonder?"
"Speak of the devil! Hi there, Marsha; hi-ho, Jeff! And you-all are…?"
OCCASION: The now-traditional season-opening progressive dinner in Heron Bay's Rockfish Reach subdivision, a pleasantly laid out and landscaped two-decade-old neighborhood of some four dozen houses in various architectural styles, typically three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath affairs with attached two-car garage, screened or open porches, decks and/or patios, perhaps a basement, perhaps a boat dock, all on low-lying, marsh-fringed acre-and-a-half lots. Of the nearly fifty families who call the place home, most are empty-or all-but-empty-nesters, their children grown and flown. About half are more or less retired, although some still work out of home offices. Perhaps a third have second homes elsewhere, in the Baltimore/Washington or Wilmington/Philadelphia areas where they once worked, or in the Florida coastal developments whereto they migrate with other East Coast snowbirds for the winter. Half a dozen of the most community-spirited from the Reach's Shoreside Drive and it's adjacent Cattail and Loblolly Courts function as a neighborhood association, planning such community events and improvements as those above-mentioned dark green cast-metal mailboxes (paid for by a special assessment), the midsummer Rockfish Reach BYOB sunset cruise down the Matahannock from the Heron Bay Marina, and the fall picnic (in one of HBE's two pavilioned waterside parks) that unofficially closes the season unofficially opened by the progressive dinner, here in early progress.
As usual, invitation notices were distributed to all four dozen households a month before the occasion, rubber-banded to the decorative knobs atop those new mailboxes. Also as usual, between fifteen and twenty couples signed on and paid the $40-per-person fee. Of the participating households (all of whom have been asked to provide, in addition to their fee, either an hors d'oeuvre/appetizer or a dessert, please indicate which), six or seven will have volunteered to be hosts: one for the buffet-and-bar opening course presently being enjoyed by all hands, perhaps four for the sit-down entrée (supplied by a Stratford caterer; check your nametag to see which entrée house you've been assigned to), and one for the all-together- again dessert buffet that winds up the festive occasion. The jollity of which, this spring, has been somewhat beclouded — as was that of last December's Rockfish Reach "Winter Holiday" party — by the apparent double suicide, still unexplained, of Richard and Susan Felton (themselves once active participants in these neighborhood events) by exhaust-fume inhalation in their closed garage at 1020 Shoreside Drive, just after Tom and Patsy Hardison's elaborate toga party last September to inaugurate their new house on Loblolly Court. Recommended dress for the progressive dinner is "country club casual": slacks and sport shirts for the gentlemen (jackets optional); pants or skirts and simple blouses for the ladies.
"Hi there. Jeff insists that we leave it to him to do the honors."
"And to apologize for this late addition to the guest list, and to cover the two extra plate charges, and to fill in the nametags — all courtesy of Avon Realty, guys, where we agents do our best to earn our commissions. May I have your attention, everybody? This handsome young stud and his blushing bride are your new about-to-be neighbors Joe and Judy Barnes, formerly and still temporarily from over in Blue Crab Bight but soon to move into Number Ten-Twenty Shoreside Drive! Joe and Judy, this is Dean Peter Simpson, from the College, and his soulmate Deborah, also from the College."
"Welcome to Rockfish Reach, Joe and Judy. What a pleasant surprise!"
"Happy to be here… Dean and Mrs. Simpson."
"Please, guys. We're Debbie and Pete."
"Lovely house, Debbie! And do forgive us for showing up empty-handed. Everything happened so fast!"
"No problem, no problem. If I know Marsha Pitt, she's probably brought an hors d'oeuvre and a dessert."
"Guilty as charged, Your Honor. Cheesecake's in the cooler out in our car for later at the Greens'; I'll put these doodads out with the rest of the finger food."
"And your new house is a lovely one too, Judy and Joe. Pete and I have always admired that place."
"Thanks for saying so. Our daughters are convinced it'll be haunted! One of them's up at the College, by the way, and her kid sister will be joining her there next year, but they'll still be coming home most weekends and such."
"We hope!"
"Oh my, how wonderful… Excuse me…"
"So! Go on in, people. Jeff and Marsha will introduce you around, and we'll follow shortly."
"Aye-aye, Cap'n. The Barneses will be doing their entrée with us, by the way. We've got plenty of extra seating, and they've promised not to say that our house is the Pitts'."
"Ai, sweetheart, you promised not to resurrect that tired old joke! Come on, Joe and Judy, let's get some wine."
("You okay, hon?"
"I'll make it. But that daughters thing really hit home."
"Yup. Here's a Kleenex. On with the party?")
HOSTS: The "associates": Deborah Clive Simpson, fifty-seven, associate librarian at Stratford College's Dexter Library, and Peter Alan Simpson, also fifty-seven, longtime professor of humanities and presently associate dean at that same quite good small institution, traditionally a liberal-arts college but currently expanding it's programs in the sciences, thanks to a munificent bequest from a late alumnus who made a fortune in the pharmaceuticals business. The Simpsons are childless, their only offspring, a much-prized daughter, having been killed two years ago in a multicar crash on the Baltimore Beltway during an ice storm in the winter of her sophomore year as a premedical student at Johns Hopkins. Her loss remains a trauma from which her parents do not expect ever to recover; the very term "closure," so fashionable nowadays, sets their teeth on edge, and the coinciding of Julie's death and Peter's well-earned promotion to associate dean has leached much pleasure from the latter. Neverthe less, in an effort to "get on with their lives," the Simpsons last year exchanged their very modest house in Stratford — so rich in now-painful memories of child-rearing and of the couple's advancement up the academic ladder from relative penury to financial comfort — for their present Rockfish Reach address, and they're doing their best to be active members of both their collegiate and their residential communities as well as generous supporters of such worthy organizations as Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières), to which it had been Julie's ambition to devote herself once she attained her M.D.