Town & Country: A Novel - Hardcover

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Brian Schaefer contributes regularly to The New York Times and has written for The New Yorker, New York magazine, and more. He is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Arts Journalism and was a finalist for the Livingston Award for International Reporting. He earned his master’s degree in creative writing from Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv. He and his husband live in New York City and the Hudson Valley. Town & Country is his first novel.

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Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

ON A SUNNY SUNDAY morning after the parade, Diane Riley’s heels sink into damp grass. Why does she insist on wearing such shoes, given the requirements of her job to traverse lawns, meadows, and fields? Because, she answers herself with proud impatience, the kinds of houses she now sells require her to project refinement. Her city clients—like these two eager men following her across the front yard of a splendid eighteenth-century farmhouse—expect polish. Her former attire of sneakers, boots, and fleece zip-ups just won’t do. It’s also why she had purchased this silk blouse, on clearance at All4Less but never mind, and splurged on the blond streaks that brighten her short tawny hair. (For local clients, the fleece and boots return. Can’t appear too fussy.)

It’s all projection, she knows. No one has ever commented on, or even seemed to register, her appearance. But it’s about how she presents herself, about embodying confidence and believing her locally grown tastes are credible to this burgeoning category of clientele who seek not to swap their urban life but to supplement it.

The Duffels, they’re called by her friends and neighbors, by cashiers and mechanics, by her chatty hairdresser and the cheerful but caustic women at the DMV. She can’t recall when or where she first heard the term. Perhaps whispered at church, or dismissively dropped in a social media post, or angrily slung about in the comments section of The Griffin Gazette articles about rising rental costs and another new microbrewery. In any case, about five years ago, the phrase seemed to surface in half her conversations. After some confusion, she learned that the nicknamesake referred to the small satchels carried by weekenders as they disembark from trains and cars, the only bag necessary since, whether they’re antiquing or apple picking, staying at a hotel or in a second home, attending outdoor performances or extravagant rustic nuptials, they won’t be sticking around past Monday.

When their numbers began to swell, many locals spoke of the Duffels with both mild irritation and grave concern, unsure whether these stylish aliens had landed with benign or malicious intent. Diane, who considered herself a staunch champion of her hometown, initially shared in the collective disdain and was among the more vocal of the Duffels’ early detractors.

But by this point she was also selling homes. And quite unexpectedly, Duffels began calling with interest in her most expensive listings, regularly paying over asking, offering cash. Diane started to wonder what good it did to resist their arrival. If they were coming anyway, why not benefit from welcoming them?

Her evolution on the matter, illustrated by new ads placed in identifiably Duffel territory on Granger Street, earned her a few awkward encounters at church and a slew of nasty remarks online. Her entrepreneurial pivot was ungenerously interpreted, even by close friends, as crass capitalizing on Griffin’s newfound popularity. But they misunderstood her. She is still a staunch champion of Griffin, just now as its promoter rather than its guard. Perhaps she is ambitious, yes. But she is ambitious on behalf of her town, wanting for it the same prosperity she wants for her family.

Her ambition—like Griffin’s, like most ambition—was born from desperation and a feeling of being undervalued. When the Rileys were struggling, her return to work kept them afloat. She worked so Will could go to college, she worked to keep Joe stable, she worked so Chip could serve this community as essentially a glorified volunteer. She works with the Duffels to prove that success can be homegrown in Griffin—and because if she doesn’t, enterprising Duffels will cater to their own.

So now, out of a genuine if convenient shift in perspective, she has come to consider the Duffels largely harmless, like the field mice, wolf spiders, milk snakes, and brown marmorated stink bugs that infest the area. More annoyance than danger; a self-isolating species. And, as evidenced by these two eager men behind her, a lucrative wellspring of prospective buyers.

She rushes up the front steps to the wraparound porch and turns to them, smiling. Even if they don’t notice her aesthetic efforts, she notices theirs: the same contrived version of “rural” she has come to expect. The tall, skinny one with the mustache wears pastel plaid. The short, stocky one with the neat beard also wears plaid, but in a more vivid palette. Each shirt is tucked into complementary-colored shorts that land well above the knee, all carrying the sheen of affluence. It’s as if they’re testing a country wardrobe, or its elevated approximation, to match their imagined country house. Diane finds this pastoral cosplay endearing, if a tad ridiculous.

She pauses before opening the front door, building anticipation. She warns them that this house has stayed in one family for over half a century, spanning three generations, which makes it special but a tad shabby, in need of sophisticated stewards.

“This home has been loved deeply,” she tells them. “But it could use some attention and a bold vision. I think you’ll know exactly what to do with it.”

She ushers them inside the small foyer, covered in fading floral wallpaper. She lets them take in the space, adjust to its pearly light, turn a slow circle to orient themselves to the snug living room, the dining room with a pendant chandelier over fresh-cut flowers, a glimpse of the charmingly retro kitchen. She watches their eyes scan dark wood floors, colorful rugs, antique fixtures, and furniture scuffed by the affection of family. She sees a dozen such homes each month, but she knows the effect of these scenes on those more accustomed to cold metal finishes and frosty marble. She senses that they’re smitten, that this might be just what they’ve been looking for.

She waits a moment, then breaks the spell, proposing renovation projects small and large, firing up their imagination, flattering their style. She knows a great contractor, not to jump the gun. As their minds swirl with plans to host dinner parties and family holidays, she nudges them upstairs, first to the smaller bedrooms and finally to the largest, which features two walls of windows overlooking a petit pond and undulating hills in the distance.

Pastel plaid draws breath and places a hand on the back of vivid plaid, who reciprocates.

Diane notices the matching rings, but she didn’t need confirmation. Of course they’re married, because God has a sly sense of humor and a knack for imaginative punishment. These men have been sent to her, she is sure, in response to her self-serving embrace of the Duffels, her struggle with her son, and as payback for her efforts eight years ago when she co-chaired a church group fighting a same-sex-marriage bill.

Back then she filled her home with strategy sessions, letter-writing campaigns, and the buttery smell of fresh-baked oatmeal raisin cookies she served to her fellow devotees and to her sons. In the end, of course, marriage rights were granted. Her campaign was a political failure and, she would learn abruptly a few years later, a familial one as well. She hadn’t once considered that the issue she so passionately opposed would one day be so personally relevant. Ironically, though, her defeat has turned out to be an unexpected professional blessing. For the sake of her clients, she has arrived at a stiff...