One Year by Mary McDonough Read Free Book Online Page B

bad with faces. And with names, to be honest.”
    â€œNo worries,” Maureen said. “I don’t think we’ve actually seen each other except in passing since your wedding.”
    â€œRight. Do you work in town?”
    â€œJust down the block, at Wharton Insurance.” Maureen laughed. “I’ve spent my entire life in Oliver’s Well.”
    â€œSo far, anyway.”
    â€œI’m not going anywhere. Someone’s got to be around for the parents.”
    â€œOh. But they’re not ill, are they? Jeannette and Danny. I saw them just the other day . . .”
    â€œNo, they’re not ill,” Maureen said. “Just getting older, as are we all.”
    Alexis thought she detected a note of wistfulness in Maureen’s voice, and she realized she didn’t quite know what to say next.
    â€œSo, what do you and PJ have planned for your first Valentine’s Day as husband and wife?” Maureen asked briskly.
    Alexis was glad for the change of subject. “Actually,” she said, “we’ll be going out to dinner with PJ’s grandparents.”
    Maureen smiled. “The Fitzgibbons live in each other’s pockets. They’re old-fashioned that way.”
    â€œI didn’t mean to sound like I was complaining,” Alexis added quickly.
    â€œOf course not. And I didn’t mean to sound critical. The Fitzgibbon family is like an extension of my own family, and sometimes when I’m talking about them I take liberties I suppose I shouldn’t. So, where are you going for dinner?”
    â€œThe Angry Squire. Mary Bernadette knows the owner from the board of the OWHA.”
    â€œYou’re in for a treat,” Maureen told her. “The food is very good and the atmosphere is charming. Richard Armstrong went to a lot of trouble to bring over most of the interior directly from England. And I’m sure you and PJ will find some time alone for a celebration. Young love always finds a way. At least, I vaguely remember that it does.”
    Again, Alexis detected that note of wistfulness.
    Maureen suddenly looked at her watch and exclaimed, “Oops, I’m going to be late if I don’t run. It was nice to see you, Alexis.”
    â€œYou too,” Alexis said, watching as Maureen dashed out the door and down the sidewalk. She was not a very attractive woman, Alexis thought, not physically anyway, and her skirt suit looked totally out of date. But she was friendly, and Alexis found that she liked Maureen, though she doubted they had much in common. Maureen was probably in her forties, more Megan’s age than hers. More Alexis’s own mother’s age, at that. And imagine, she had lived her entire life in little Oliver’s Well! Of course, that was PJ’s intention, to live out the rest of his life in Oliver’s Well. And as PJ’s wife, Alexis would be spending the remainder of her days right here alongside him.
    Wow , she thought, as she walked up to the counter to place her order for a corn muffin toasted with butter. That was a bit of a scary thought—the remainder of her days, as if her life was already mostly in the past. She would grow old and eventually die in a charming but insular little Virginia town. Talk about mellowing. If things continued in the way they were, her friends back home in Philadelphia would hardly recognize her in a few years, and not only because she would have gained twenty pounds from eating too many corn muffins and too much of Mary Bernadette’s mashed potatoes!
    Alexis paid for her muffin and took a seat at one of the little tables in the bakery. At that moment, she was not in the least concerned about becoming unrecognizable, not even to herself. She was concerned with eating her muffin before it got cold.

C HAPTER 11
    T he moment she entered The Angry Squire, Alexis was charmed. She had never been to England, but she had watched enough period dramas and browsed enough art and