M: What sort of company was it?

  Boland: You’ve never heard of Skeffington Construction? Jesus, lady, they built half the homes in this town. After the war, the economy boomed. Alan Skeffington was a multimillionaire by the time his only daughter was seventeen years old. She even dated my older brother a few times, but you know how it is. No sparks. But when she met Wayne at one of our summer lake parties, it was love — or at least lust — at first sight. They were married ten months later.

  M: Was she pregnant?

  Boland: Nah. It wasn’t like that.

  M: Was the marriage a happy one?

  Boland: Sure. As happy as marriages go. Pepper wanted kids badly, but they didn’t have much luck for a while. Finally, when she was around thirty, they had Paul.

  M: So Paul isn’t Constance Buckridge’s natural son.

  Boland: No. I believe Connie formally adopted him, though. Anyway, after he was born, I sensed that Wayne had pulled away from Pepper, or maybe it was the other way around. Whatever the case, Wayne started working longer hours and Pepper spent all her time with her kid. She didn’t seem all that unhappy, though from what I observed, Wayne did. I was good friends with both of them, you understand, but I was closer to Wayne. By then Id gotten married myself. Had a good job at an insurance company. We all got together at least once every week or two for drinks and cards. Pepper was a real bridge player. She even organized a bridge club. Wayne was always at work, so she needed the company. When Paul was two, they moved into a new house, a mansion really. Wayne built it for them. It was on the other side of the lake from my parents ‘summer home. Very ritzy. They hired a maid and a cook and a guy to keep the grounds. Wayne was vice president of Skeffington Construction by then. He’d helped the company branch off into some highly lucrative product development. I don’t remember now what it all was, but Wayne was a natural at business. When Paul was three, Alan Skeffington died, leaving the company to Wayne and Pepper. Wayne immediately renamed it Buckridge Construction. I guess I understood, although Pepper didn’t. She would have preferred him to keep her father s name on the business.

  M: Wayne must have been thrilled.

  Boland: Yeah, I guess so. But it was hard to tell by then. He was drinking too much. I guess you could say his unhappiness was beginning to show. What made it worse was that Pepper had become a full-fledged hypochondriac. I figured it was her way of getting his attention, but actually she always was a hypochondriac, even when we were kids. She’d get a cold and have to go to bed for two weeks. But by her midthirties, she was sure she had cancer, diabetes, a bad heart, walking pneumonia, and just about every other malady known to modern man.

  M: Was she really sick?

  Boland: If you d asked me then, I would have told you it was all an act. But, in the end, it turned out she wasn’t making it up. Something was wrong with her, all right. She went to dozens of different doctors to find out why her body didn’t feel right. I mean, the tests that woman had — it was enough to curl your socks. And the money it cost. But nobody could help.

  M: Maybe it was psychosomatic.

  Boland: You mean, it was all in her head?

  M: No, it was real, but it was caused by her emotions. It sounds like her husband wasn’t around much. She couldn’t have felt very loved or supported.

  Boland: (Shrugs) Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s too bad, really. They started out with so much going for them. But I’m not sure Wayne knew how to be happy. Maybe that’s why he was crying the night before he got married. Maybe he knew he was going to make Pepper miserable, ruin both their lives.

  M: If he was that prescient, he was an unusual man.

  Boland: Pardon me?

  M: Tell me, Mr. Boland, how did Pepper Buckridge die?

  Boland: Well, I was on the road at the time, so I heard about it later from Wayne. He was pretty torn up. Seems she got real sick one night. She’d been bedridden off and on for many months, but the last week was the worst. That night she had some sort of crisis. Stomach pains. Vomiting. I don’t know what else. Wayne rushed her to the emergency room and the doctors did what they could, but she died in his arms. I arranged most of the funeral. Wayne was too upset. He said he blamed himself for her death. He should have been more sympathetic, should have helped her find a specialist who could really get to the bottom of her medical problems. It was just that he was so tired out by her continuous complaints. I think after a while, he just tuned her out.

  M: What happened to Paul while all this was happening?

  Boland: He was pretty small. When Pepper was no longer able to care for him, she hired a nanny. The woman didn’t last a month. She hired a couple more, but nobody worked out. So I guess between the cook the maid, and the groundsman, little Paul was looked after. Every time I was there he always seemed happy enough.

  M: How did Wayne meet his second wife?

  Boland: Connie? She was one of the housemaids and then, later, the cook. She came to work for the family in ‘61, right after they moved into the new house. I doubt she was more than twenty-two or twenty-three at the time, although she had a son who was around seven. If I’m not mistaken, Nathan was five years older than Paul.

  M: So Nathan was Constance s natural son but not by Wayne Buckridge.

  Boland: Right. You know, if you do the math, you realize that she must have gotten pregnant when she was fifteen. I don’t think I ‘m telling tales out of school. I ‘m sure someone’s figured that out by now, although when I’ve seen articles printed in newspapers about her and the kids, they often make Paul and Nathan the same age, and several years younger than they really are. It s probably a source of some shame on her part. I mean, she never talked much about Nathan’s father. Wayne told me some guy got her pregnant and then took off, though you can’t quote me, because I don’t recall the details, if I ever heard any. But I don’t think she was ever married. And a problem like that carried a real stigma back then. From what she told me later, she came to Minneapolis to live with her brother because her parents threw her out. Bad situation all around. Connie was a nice-enough young woman but not very well educated. She was extraordinarily pretty. A natural platinum blonde. Great body. But terribly shy. She was what you might call sweet. She was from somewhere in Wisconsin, I think That’s all I know about her background.

  M: How did she become romantically involved with Wayne?

  Boland: Well, now, I don’t have all the details on that either. I know she worked in the house for at least a year before she took over the cook s position. It was lots more money than the maid position, but I don’t think that s what got her interested in it. She and the cook got along famously. Connie would always ask her if she needed any help. Even then, Connie — we never called her Constance — had an affinity for cooking. She learned everything the woman could teach her and then she started taking out books from the library. I remember Wayne saying once that the dinner we were having that evening was one of “Connie s many learning experiences.” To be honest, it was a superb meal. When the cook decided to accept another position, Connie applied for her job and got it. By then, Wayne was in his midforties and was starting to put on weight. Funny. As I think about it now, while Pepper was wasting away up in her room, Wayne was stuffing himself with Connie s fabulous food in the dining room. One of life s crazy ironies, I guess. I suppose it was only natural that Wayne and Connie struck up a friendship. For all practical purposes, they were alone in the house most evenings. See, during the last six months of Pepper’s life, she was always in bed by seven. Wayne rarely got home before then, and he wanted his dinner right away.

  M: So, as far as you know, it was just an innocent relationship that turned romantic because Wayne s wife was essentially absent from his life.

  Boland: I guess that about covers it.

  M: Constance didn’t lay a trap for Wayne? Seduce him? Ply him with food and wine to get him in the sack?

  Boland: (Shrugs) Maybe. But he never would have married her unless he loved her. And I really believe that was the case. Connie had been taking care of baby Paul for almost two years by then. They’d become inseparable. When Pepper died, I think it was normal for Wayne to turn to the one person he’d become close to during that awful time.

  M: In other words, this young, penniless woman just got lucky. She was at the right place at the right time.

  Boland: I suppose you could put it that way.

  M: Sounds like a fairy tale to me.

  Boland: Yes, it does. (Smiles pleasantly.)

  M: I don’t believe in fairy tales, Mr. Boland. Let’s move on to their marriage.

  Boland: Here’s where my information gets even more spotty. My wife and the kids and I moved to Chicago in ‘65. It was a year after Wayne and Connie were married. Little Emily didn’t come along until ‘66.

  M: So Emily is the only natural child of Wayne and Constance.

  Boland: Right. Paul was seven by then and Nathan was practically a teenager. Our families still saw each other once or twice a year, but it wasn’t like it was back in the old days. All I remember is, Wayne finally seemed to be content. The kids were thriving and he and Connie traveled a lot together. Wayne had a bunch of overseas accounts to visit, and Connie always went along. Little by little, she got the education she’d missed earlier in her life. If you ask me, the only thing she was really interested in was food. She couldn’t learn about it fast enough. Really, she’d become this incredible hostess, throwing dinner party after dinner party for Wayne and his current and potential business associates. Getting invited to one of her soirees was a sign that you’d made it socially.

  M: Did the Buckridges still employ a cook?

  Boland: Yes, but the dinner parties were special. Connie did it all. By then, she’d kicked out the staff and made the third floor, where the staff quarters had been, into a playroom for the kids. They still had a maid, a gardener, and a cook, but none of them lived in. Connie limited when they could be at the house because she didn’t like nonfamily members around in the evenings or on weekends. Just a different approach, I guess.

  M: And everybody seemed happy?

  Boland: As far as I could tell. As I said, I wasn’t around as much. Wayne and I drifted apart during those years. Too bad, but then I suppose it couldn’t be helped.

  M: Tell me about his death.

  Boland: Again, I wasn’t there when it happened, so this is secondhand information from Connie. Let me back up a minute so that I can put this into some sort of context. In ‘71 or ‘72 — you’d have to check with Connie to get the exact dates — she was asked to do a couple guest spots on a local TV show. They wanted her to talk about appetizers or some such thing — what she served at her famous dinner parties. In a matter of weeks, she’d become a household name in the Cities. She way offered more spots, then a weekly segment on the show. Eventually, she was offered her own show. And from there anybody could see there was no stopping her. That was around ‘73. Wayne way in his fifties by then and was totally out ofshape. He was a good hundred pounds overweight, his blood pressure was through the roof, and he’d had one small heart attack His doctors were telling him to slow down and lose weight. He did neither. Nobody told Wayne Buckridge what to do. I think Connie s brother, Arthur, had come to live with them that same year. He’d applied to graduate school at the U of M and had been accepted. Kind of an odd man, if I recall correctly. I know Wayne didn’t like him, but he put up with him because Connie wanted him around. Then early in January of ‘74,1 got a call from her. Wayne had suffered another heart attack She was in the house when it happened, but she was busy down in her study. The TV or the radio was on and she never heard him call for help. I guess when she went upstairs later, she found him on the floor in the bathmom. She called the paramedics, but it was too late.

  M: I suppose she was devastated by his death.

  Boland: Yes, she was. It was a very hard time for her. Her career was taking off, but when her husband died so unexpectedly, her world was thrown into chaos. I think she almost had a nervous breakdown.

  M: But she didn’t.

  Boland: No, she pulled it together. Connie is a very strong woman. I really admire her.

  M: Thanks for your time, Mr. Boland. If I have further questions, would you mind talking to me again?

  Boland: Not at all. Say, give my best to Connie. I haven’t seen or talked to her in years. I assume you’ve already interviewed her.

  M: Not yet.

  Boland: Well, just tell her Oscar says hi. She’s a peach of a woman. Tops in my book You can quote me on that.

  Journal Note

  I E-mailed this interview to Pluto shortly after midnight. Can’t help but wonder what response I’ll get from him, if any.

  8

  Constance rose early on Sunday morning. In the living room of her suite, she sat behind a desk in her robe and slippers, drinking a cup of strong black coffee, absorbed by the notes she’d made last night for this afternoon’s speech at the Women’s Club in downtown Minneapolis. She wanted to talk about Cuisine America, the theme of her latest cookbook. There would be lots of reporters in attendance this afternoon, all eager to take down her words and print them in local newspaper and magazine articles. It seemed that people couldn’t get enough discussion these days about food.

  She planned to quote Brillat-Savarin today: “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.” In Constance’s opinion, food was a highly personal, emotionally charged issue. In the nearly thirty years she’d been working in the food industry, she’d seen the country’s interest in wine and fine cuisine move from mild curiosity to national obsession. The Television Food Network, which she helped to start in 1993, had become the third-fastest-growing cable network in the land. Constance still couldn’t believe her luck. She’d actually caught a star as it was rising.

  Not that her life had started out with much promise.

  Abusive, alcoholic parents. Pregnant at fifteen. Even so, she’d felt certain that Nathan’s birth was the first of many blessings. She’d wanted so much to make her life work, to have a family that made sense. She’d loved Nathan’s father, and she’d thought that love would be enough to get her through any problem. But she’d been naive. The fact was, she’d had no money and no skills. Her past wasn’t something she was proud of, and therefore she wasn’t eager to talk about it. She and Nathan had survived, but at a terrible cost After she married Wayne Buckridge and her life took a public turn, the requests for interviews made her feel deeply threatened. But as time went on, she realized her fears were only a paper tiger. She caught on eventually that interviews were nothing but shallow little dances. The interviewers were all looking for quick soundbites or a quote or two that would translate well on the printed page. Constance had become a master at giving them just what they wanted: a little content a little sizzle. When die questions waxed too personal, they were easily deflected. She learned from politicians that you never needed to answer a question you didn’t want to; you simply talked about something else.

  It was odd being a celebrity. Since Constance had moved into that netherworld, everyone assumed they knew her. She was available. On TV On the covers of national magazines. On talk shows. She appeared on the Today Show regularly and had even been coaxed into doing a couple of commercials. Since she was familiar, she was known, almost an old friend. And that assumption was very easy to hide behind. She’d refused offers by several prominent writers to authorize a biography. Other requests for background information were easily handled by a standard bio sheet she and Arthur had put together years ago. No one had ever really pressed the issue — until now.

  Looking up, Constance saw Arthur pad out of the far bedroom, stretching his arms high above his head. He was wearing a striped robe over his silk pajamas, his white hair tousled in a boyish way.

  “Morning, Connie. You’re up early.” When he finally focused his eyes on her, his expression sobered. “Something wrong?”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Get that will you?” she asked, a tight edge to her voice.

  “It should be Kenny.” Kenneth Merlin, her daughter’s husband, was her legal muscle. This morning she hoped he could work a small miracle.

  In die seven years Kenny had been married to Emily, Constance couldn’t think of a time when he hadn’t been wearing a suit. This morning was no different. She half suspected he slept in one. Kenny was fourteen years older than her daughter, an obvious father figure replacing the one she’d lost. Emily had been hurt the most by Wayne’s death, something Constance regretted. She and her daughter had been close before he died, but afterward Emily had grown distant. It was almost as if she blamed Constance for her father’s heart attack. Unlike Paul, Emily wanted no part in the growing family fame. She had little interest in food, and as soon as she graduated from Macalester, she’d headed east to New York, mainly to get away from “Mother.”

  Emily had somehow wrangled herself a job on one of the ABC soap operas. The Buckridge name probably hadn’t hurt. Constance assumed the job paid pretty well because Emily never wrote home for money. Backstage, she took care of the actors’ costumes, ensuring that everyone’s dress or sweater or suit was available when needed, clean and in perfect condition. She also signed up to take photography classes at night. Cameras and lenses and darkrooms interested Emily. She wrote her brother Paul that if she was going to be the black sheep of the family, she might as well shoot a photodocumentary of her demise.

  Emily’s life had been running along pretty smoothly when one of the resident divas on the soap accused her of stealing a black sequined evening gown. Constance heard about Emily’s arrest only after die fact, but it didn’t really come as a surprise. That old adage about falling apples and trees seemed appropriate. Constance knew she was capable of doing almost anything to get what she wanted and suspected Emily had inherited that same ruthless determination.