Blueprints: A Novel Read Free Page A

Williston’s finest, on their way home after a night on patrol. They had admiring smiles for Jamie as she hurried to keep up with Roy, who was entering the diner. He immediately began working booths filled with real estate agents, lawyers, plumbers, shopkeepers, husbands and wives—all local, all friends. Williston lay twenty miles west of Boston. Home to fifteen thousand residents, it was ruled by a Board of Selectmen, but if there had been a mayor, Roy would have been it. He was always smiling, always up for a meet-and-greet, always remembering names. Theo had done this for years until age crippled his mornings, at which point Roy smoothly stepped in. As the single largest employer in town, not to mention the raison d’ ê tre for many town shops, MacAfee Homes treasured local goodwill.
    Roy made it happen. That he was strikingly handsome didn’t hurt. With his keen brown eyes and perpetual tan, he looked younger than fifty-two. The gray that had spattered his hair a decade before had miraculously turned sandy, and, though Jamie didn’t know for fact, she would bet that his forehead was medicinally smoothed. Not that she criticized him for it. He put in the effort to stay in shape—had likely gone running at dawn that morning, even in the heat. Now, dressed in a crisp blue shirt and fine gray slacks, he had a fresh-from-the-shower sheen.
    For Roy, it was all about looking young—young body, young face, young wife. The irony, of course, was that with Jamie always trying to look older than twenty-nine, they were occasionally taken for brother and sister. Roy loved that, and while Jamie was proud of her father for his efforts and, yes, for his looks, she found the brother-sister comparisons awkward.
    This day, she didn’t get a formal greeting from him—no hug or kiss, no hey, honey, thanks for coming —just a possessive arm around her shoulder, drawing her into the small talk.
    But small talk wasn’t her strength. She could speak at length about architectural design, energy efficiency, or repurposed barnboard, but she wasn’t good at keeping track of whose mother was sick, whose son had gotten into college, or which tree service would take down the rotting pine in the center of town. Roy knew all that and more, in part because Jess picked up gossip at the local hair salon and shared it with him. Jamie would have forgotten it in two seconds flat. Not Roy. He remembered every last detail, pulling out whatever was appropriate in a way that endeared him to his audience.
    Today, the talk was of the weather. Beastly hot … not right … fierce storms coming. Jamie smiled and nodded, but after a minute began to shift from one high heel to the other.
    Her mother was waiting. Today was her birthday. And she’d had surgery on her wrist less than twenty-four hours before. Jamie had texted her earlier but wanted to be there.
    Finally, Roy guided her to a free booth. Fiona’s wasn’t so much a single railroad car as a square of four cars framing an open kitchen. The decor was a virtual history of the town, Fighting Falcon–blue wall after wall of framed high school senior class photos dating back to the mid-1900s, and laminated front pages of the Williston News, n é e the Williston Crier, memorializing the town during major events like the fire of ’56, which wiped out half the town center, the blizzard of ’78, which paralyzed town life for weeks, and the ’04 Red Sox capturing their first World Series title in eighty-six years, which had been out-of-the-park awesome for a town in which two team members had lived. More old newspaper clippings covered the tabletops and were covered in turn by a thick sheet of glass, but the clutter ended there. Benches were upholstered in a soothing gray, place mats woven to match. Cloth napkins, knotted around silverware, filled a slim tin by the wall. Jamie automatically reached for two as they slid into the booth, passing one to Roy, who placed his cell beside it.
    They were