The Sweetest Summer(71)
“You’re thirty seconds early,” their father said. “But where the hell are your shirts?”
Chapter Ten
Just as Richard suspected, Charlie was in the barn. It was a particularly warm morning for Maine, well into the eighties. When Charlie heard him approach and glanced up in surprise, Richard could see his frayed work shirt was soaked with sweat.
“Good morning, Mr. McGuinness. I was wondering if you’d have a minute to talk.”
Charlie blinked, turned away, and continued what he was doing—tossing fresh hay into a barn stall. It was as if no one had spoken to him.
Richard never spent much time in the country until he was forced to campaign in the rural reaches of his adopted state. He grew up in Hartford and then transitioned immediately to Manhattan, getting his undergraduate at Columbia. Then it was on to Boston, law school, and Tamara. So as he looked around this quaint Maine barn, he couldn’t even guess what kind of farming, if any, might be done on a property like this, or what kind of animals might be roaming about. Charlie disappeared into the stall without a word.
“So, do you have horses? Do you ride?” Richard made this inquiry as he stepped into the shade of the two-hundred-year-old barn, aware that he hadn’t been invited to do so. He hoped casual conversation might loosen up the farmer, since Charlie McGuinness was about as stoic and cantankerous as any New Englander he’d ever run across. Richard heard Charlie clanging around with water and a bucket but he didn’t answer his question. He decided to try again. “Perhaps you have cows. I think I hear chickens, too, is that right?”
Nothing.
Well, this was awkward. Suddenly, Richard realized he must look out of place standing on a dirt floor in six-hundred-dollar Italian leather shoes and his custom-tailored, triple-pleated pants. But he’d come straight from the station in Boston. Changing his clothes hadn’t even occurred to him.
He had come to Maine to have a chat with Charlie. So far, he’d made no progress. Richard decided to step outside the barn and wait until the old guy felt like talking, because he didn’t want to piss him off any more than he already had.
As he turned to leave, Charlie exited the stall. “Why are you asking about this farm, Congressman?”
Richard was about to respond when Charlie’s laughter cut him off—apparently that had been a rhetorical question.
“Have you come to steal poor old Tussy now? Has ‘the child’ not been enough and now you want all our critters? How many chickens are you planning to take? We got four goats, too, and a cranky old mare. Do you want to ride her out of here? Should I tack her up for ya, Congressman?”
Richard had never heard Charlie McGuinness speak so many words at one time. And every one of them was dripping with sarcasm and disgust. He tried to soften the tone of the conversation. “Now, Charlie—”
“You want it all, you say?” McGuinness laughed again, resting his dirty hands on the hips of his cotton work pants. “You’ve come to grab the whole place out from under us? The house, the barn, the hay crop, the tractor?”
“I believe we should move on from the sarcasm,” Richard said. “I’ve simply come to talk. Can I take you into town and maybe we could have a cold beer? You look like you could use a break.”
“It isn’t even noon yet and I don’t drink, but if I did, you’d be the last soul on Earth I’d want to imbibe with.”
Richard nearly laughed. Could this have started off any worse? He sincerely doubted it. “Iced tea, then? Lemonade?”
Charlie peered around Richard toward the open barn door and the yard beyond. He craned his neck. “Where are your minions? I only see one car out there, though I know my FBI friends are where they always are, parked at the end of my lane.”