Free Greenwich by Howard Fast Page A

fact.”
    Sally had never spent an evening like this. Usually, either at her dinner table or in her living room, the men talked about golf and stocks and investments and futures and other things that she was equally indifferent to, and the women spoke about the endless problems with their children and their homes and their husbands—sotto voce, although the men paid no attention to what they were talking about—and when the men engaged the women in conversation, it was limited to golf and vacation places or whispered if the man or woman was coming on—but this! This had never happened before, and she didn’t really know whether she enjoyed it or found it troubling; yet while she could not understand why her husband had allowed her to invite the two clerics, she decided that she absolutely loved Sister Pat Brody, and though she was unable to make much of the conversation or what Sister Brody meant about her years in strange places, she nevertheless decided that she would go to the library one day soon and find out what or where El Salvador was and what Sister Brody had done there.
    Sally was not the only person at the table mystified by Richard’s willingness to include Sister Brody and Monsignor Donovan at dinner. Knowing Castle from previous occasions and plentiful gossip, both Professor Greene and his wife were surprised, though delighted, to meet such unexpected guests. Sellig was intrigued, and as for Muffy, she was, as she put it later, pissed off at their egghead chatter; but the truth was that she was interested in the monsignor, a lean, handsome, hawk-faced man who reminded her of Clint Eastwood. Her thoughts during most of the dinner, as she nibbled at the baby vegetables and the risotto, sticking to her vow of never eating more than half of any dish, were of being alone with Donovan for a few hours. A celibate man was outside of her experience, and she mused over how she might go about it.
    Finally, Sally announced that there would be coffee and cognac in the living room, and that the men who wished to smoke might remain at the table. Castle had told her that this was the way “old money” did it, and while she had never encountered old money at a dinner table, she had seen the practice on film and was delighted that she could do more or less the same. Both Sellig and Professor Greene went through a shared guilt, since they were both feminists, but neither could resist the lure of valid Cohibas. Sellig salved his guilt by phoning his wife, who said to him, “I just don’t know, Hal—no, I can’t leave. He’s still in intensive care.”
    â€œI’ll join you in about an hour or less,” Sellig said, assuring her that intensive care was by no means unusual in a case like this.
    As Castle passed the cigars and poured brandy, he wondered what the monsignor’s response would be.
    â€œSince His Holiness has been to Cuba, I feel it mitigates a modest misdemeanor,” Donovan said. “I haven’t smoked a Cuban cigar in a long time. Thank you, Richard.”

Eleven
    C hristina Manelli, the younger of Frank and Contance Manelli’s two daughters, would be a sophomore at Greenwich High School after the summer break. Meanwhile, she had a job in Belle Haven as a day sitter for a family with two small children, a girl of five and a boy of seven. She worked from 10:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. and at times an hour or two more. She didn’t mind that, and she liked the kids, and she was more than satisfied with the hundred dollars a week that they paid her. Half of if she gave to her mother, who put it into Christina’s college account. Five dollars a week went to the plate at mass, which left her with forty-five dollars to spend as she wished, enough for movies and anything else she desired.
    She loved to read, and one of the pleasant things about Greenwich was a book exchange that had been set up at the town dump. People brought books for which they had