1. WISH YOU WERE HERE
1
Mary Minor Haristeen, Harry to her friends, trotted along the railroad track. Following at her heels were Mrs. Murphy, her wise and willful tiger cat, and Tee Tucker, her Welsh corgi. Had you asked the cat and the dog they would have told you that Harry belonged to them, not vice versa, but there was no doubt that Harry belonged to the little town of Crozet, Virginia. At thirty-three she was the youngest postmistress Crozet had ever had, but then no one else really wanted the job.
Crozet nestles in the haunches of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The town proper consists of Railroad Avenue, which parallels the Chesapeake Ohio Railroad track, and a street intersecting it called the Whitehall Road. Ten miles to the east reposes the rich and powerful small city of Charlottesville, which, like a golden fungus, is spreading east, west, north, and south. Harry liked Charlottesville just fine. It was the developers she didn’t much like, and she prayed nightly they’d continue to think of Crozet and its three thousand inhabitants as a dinky little whistle stop on the route west and ignore it.
A gray clapboard building with white trim, next to the rail depot, housed the post office. Next to that was a tiny grocery store and a butcher shop run by“Market” Shiflett. Everyone appreciated this convenience because you could pick up your milk, mail, and gossip in one central location.
Harry unlocked the door and stepped inside just as the huge railroad clock chimed seven beats for 7:00 A.M. Mrs. Murphy scooted under her feet and Tucker entered at a more leisurely pace.
An empty mail bin invited Mrs. Murphy. She hopped in. Tucker complained that she couldn’t jump in.
“Tucker, hush. Mrs. Murphy will be out in a minute—won’t you?” Harry leaned over the bin.
Mrs. Murphy stared right back up at her and said,“Fat chance. Let Tucker bitch. She stole my catnip sockie this morning.”
All Harry heard was a meow.
The corgi heard every word.“You’re a real shit, Mrs. Murphy. You’ve got a million of those socks.”
Mrs. Murphy put her paws on the edge of the bin and peeped over.“So what. I didn’t say you could play with any of them.”
“Stop that, Tucker.” Harry thought the dog was growling for no reason at all.
A horn beeped outside. Rob Collier, driving the huge mail truck, was delivering the morning mail. He’d return at four that afternoon for pickup.
“You’re early,” Harry called to him.
“Figured I’d cut you a break.” Rob smiled. “Because in exactly one hour Mrs. Hogendobber will be standing outside this door huffing and puffing for her mail.” He dumped two big duffel bags on the front step and went back to the truck. Harry carried them inside.
“Hey, I’d have done that for you.”
“I know,” Harry said. “I need the exercise.”
Tucker appeared in the doorway.
“Hello, Tucker,” Rob greeted the dog. Tucker wagged her tail. “Well, neither rain nor sleet nor snow, et cetera.” Rob slid behind the wheel.
“It’s seventy-nine degrees at seven, Rob. I wouldn’t worry about the sleet if I were you.”
He smiled and drove off.
Harry opened the first bag. Mrs. Hogendobber’s mail was on the top, neatly bound with a thick rubber band. Rob, if he had the time, put Mrs. Hogendobber’s mail in a pile down at the main post office in Charlottesville. Harry slipped the handful of mail into the mail slot. She then began sorting through the rest of the stuff: bills, enough mail-order catalogues to provide clothing for every man, woman, and child in the United States, and of course personal letters and postcards.
Courtney Shiflett, Market’s fourteen-year-old daughter, received a postcard from Sally McIntire, away at camp. Kelly Craycroft, the handsome, rich paving contractor, was the recipient of a shiny postcard from Paris. It was a photo of a beautiful angel with wings. Harry flipped it over. It was Oscar Wilde’s tombstone inthe P?re Lachaise cemetery. On the back was the message “Wish you were here.” No signature. The handwriting was computer script, like signatures on letters from your congressperson. Harry sighed and slipped it into Kelly’s box. It must be heaven to be in Paris.
Snowcapped Alps majestically covered a postcard addressed to Harry from her lifelong friend Lindsay Astrove.
Dear Harry—
Arrived in Zurich. No gnomes in sight. Good flight. Very tired. Will write some more later.
Best,
LINDSAY
It must be heaven to be in Zurich.
Bob Berryman, the largest stock trailer dealer in the South, got a registered letter from the IRS. Harry gingerly put it in his box.
Harry’s best friend, Susan Tucker, received a large package from James River Traders, probably those discounted cotton sweaters she’d ordered. Susan, prudent, waited for the sales. Susan was the “mother” of Tee Tucker, named Tee because Susan gave her to Harry on the seventh tee at the Farmington Country Club. Mrs. Murphy, two years the dog’s senior, was not amused, but she came to accept it.
A Gary Larsen postcard attracted Harry’s attention. Harry turned it over. It was addressed to Fair Haristeen, her soon-to-be-ex-husband, but not soon enough. “Hang in there, buddy” was the message from Stafford Sanburne. Harry jammed the postcard in Fair’s box.
Crozet was still small enough that people felt compelled to take sides during a divorce. Perhaps even New York City was that small. At any rate, Harry reeled from fury to sorrow on a daily basis as she watched former friends choose sides, and most were choosing Fair.
After all, she had left him, thereby outraging other women in Albemarle County stuck in a miserable marriage but lacking the guts to go. That was a lot of women.
“Thank God they didn’t have children,” clucked many tongues behind Harry’s back and to her face. Harry agreed with them. With children the goddamned divorce would take a year. Without, the limbo lasted only six months and she was two down.
By the time the clock struck eight the two duffel bags were folded over, the boxes filled, the old pine plank floor swept clean.
Mrs. George Hogendobber, an evangelical Protestant, picked up her mail punctually at 8:00 A.M. each morning except Sunday, when she was evangeling and the post office was closed. She fretted a great deal over evolution. She was determined to prove that humans were not descended from apes but, rather, created in God’s own image.
Mrs. Murphy fervently hoped that Mrs. Hogendobber would prove her case, because linking man and ape was an insult to the ape. Of course, the good woman would die of shock to discover that God was a cat and therefore humans were off the board entirely.
That large Christian frame was lurching itself up the stairs. She pushed open the door with her characteristic vigor.
“Morning, Harry.”
“Morning, Mrs. Hogendobber. Did you have a good weekend?”
“Apart from a splendid service at the Holy Light Church, no.” She yanked out her mail. “Josiah DeWitt stopped by as I came home and gave me his sales pitch to part with Mother’s Louis XVI bed, canopies and all. And on the Sabbath. The man is a servant of Mammon.”
“Yes—but he knows good stuff when he sees it.” Harry flattered her.
“H-m-m, Louis this and Louis that. Too many Louis’s over there in France. Came to a bad end, too, every one of them. I don’t think the French have produced anyone of note since Napoleon.”
“What about Claudius Crozet?”
This stopped Mrs. Hogendobber for a moment.“Believe you’re right. Created one of the engineering wonders of the nineteenth century. I stand corrected. But that’s the only one since Napoleon.”
The town of Crozet was named for this same Claudius Crozet, born on December 31, 1789. Trained as an engineer, he fought with the French in Russia and was captured on the hideous retreat from Moscow. So charmed was his Russian captor that he promptly removed Claudius to his huge estate and set him up with books and engineering tools. Claudius performed services for his captor until Frenchmen were allowed to return home. They say the Russian, a prince of the blood, rewarded the young captain with jewels, gold, and silver.