(914)

The commute from Wyman Station, in northern Westchester County, just north of New York City, to midtown Manhattan is just under an hour — 52 minutes to be exact. Really. Ask one of the commuters still waiting at 8:15 for the 7:45 from Brewster. Or any area real estate broker.
Yet in spite of the easy commute to Grand Central, its lively mix of inhabitants from all walks of life, and a public school system that's the envy of neighboring suburbs, Wyman Station has always been best known as the home of St. Anselm's Academy, an exclusive private school with a 100-year old history and an illustrious roster of graduates that reads like a Who's Who.

Situated on 15 acres of gracious oaks and softly rolling hills, the ivy-covered red brick Neo-Gothic buildings of the original campus now peacefully coexist with 1960s-modern glass and concrete additions. "St. A's", as it's commonly called, is in the tonier part of town — known as Wyman Heights, or simply "The Heights" to those who live there.

Or wish they did.

Troy Murphy rolled his Burberry raincoat into a ball on his lap, and rested the Wall Street Journal and Historic Preservation Magazine on top of his beat-up monogrammed T. Anthony briefcase — a college graduation present from his grandfather. Settling down in the last available window seat on the train, he sipped his Starbuck's Mocha Java, black, no sugar, as he perused an advance copy of the latest issue of St. Anselm's Alumni News, courtesy of the Development Office.

Recently recruited to jump-start the school's floundering Capital Campaign, Troy was considered the school's trophy in his day. And not only was he St. A's class of '73, he was Brooke Wyman's (as in Wyman Station) son-in-law. It didn't hurt that he looked like he'd just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad, and was by far the youngest St. A's alum ever considered for election to the Board of Trustees. With his social connections, beautiful wife, and authentic 19th century Georgian Colonial (currently under restoration) in The Heights, it would be easy to hate Troy. But you couldn't — he was too nice.

This morning, he glanced out the window as he sped toward New York, seeing only his reflection in the tempered glass window of the Metro North traincar.

Gotta go. Time for school. Let's hook up again later — in Finnish this time! Ciao, Evan.

Evan Janowitz finished typing the e-mail on his keyboard, took the last swig of Lemon-Lime Gatorade and swirled it around in his mouth as he banged out the morning's final message on his PowerMac. His correspondent was a Finnish girl named Kari he'd met in an online chat room — and with whom he had become a sort of electronic pen pal. As the last track of the new Beastie Boys CD ended, Evan changed the password for his Claudia Schiffer screen saver — just to be on the safe side — and galloped downstairs, grabbing a frosted chocolate Pop Tart from the kitchen counter on the way out.

"Mom, can you pick me up at school around 6:00 today? I have to stay after for rehearsal."

"Sure hon; have a good day. See you later," Phyllis Janowitz replied willingly but distractedly as she read the Living section of the New York Times.

Phyllis was relieved that her son would be involved in something other than Net-surfing at least one afternoon a week, and she was thankful to Mr. Sheridan, Evan's 8th grade English teacher, for getting him involved in St. Anselm's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

But even though he had a genius-level I.Q. and was flourishing at St. A's, Phyllis and Ed Janowitz firmly believed in public school education, and they often wondered if they'd made the right decision in sending Evan to a private school. Plus, the $15,000 annual tuition was beginning to weigh heavily on their budget.

These worries, for the moment, left Phyllis Janowitz's mind as she reached for a pair of scissors to clip Ruth Reichl's restaurant review from that day's paper. As she did so, what she had no idea of were the surprising discoveries Evan was making online regarding the future of St. Anselm's — and of Wyman Station at large. Discoveries that would affect all their futures.

At the same moment, in their currently-under-restoration Georgian Colonial in Wyman Heights, Troy Murphy's wife Linda reached for the ringing telephone in the hallway as she directed some workmen upstairs who were delivering slabs of marble for the new master bathroom.

"Hello?," a crackling voice said. "This is the overseas operator. I have a collect call for a Linda Murphy from a Mr. Hari in Katmandu, Nepal. Will you accept the charges?"

There was a moment of stunned silence before Linda was able to make the word "yes" come up into her throat and out of her freshly Chanel-lip-glossed mouth. The connection was bad, with tons of static on the line, but it was amazing to her that she could hear anything at all from halfway around the world — and up high in the Himalayas, no less.

"Linda, is that you? Can you hear me? Linda? We have to talk," the faint, lilting, British-accented voice called.

As Linda stared at the small sterling-silver-framed snapshot of Troy on the mahogany Queen Anne secretaire in the hall, she heard the caller, all right. This was unbelievable.

Her hands began shaking, and she cradled the phone between her head and shoulder, reached for a match on the table, and, strangely, lit the Aveda aromatherapy candle in front of her; she'd read when she bought it that it would help calm her nerves, and if she ever needed calming, it was now.

Linda inhaled the "relaxation" aroma as she sat down absently on a Chippendale side chair, the receiver to her ear, and listened. All the while, she was mindlessly peeling away the hideous 1970s paisley foil wallpaper that the painters had begun to remove on orders from Bunny Harte-Mackenzie, Architectural Digest's Decorator of the Year.

It was Hari on the phone. Hari! And as she listened intently to what he began to say, all Linda could think was that her past had finally caught up with her. And thank God Troy was on his way to the office, and not here. Not now.

Wall Street, 10:00 a.m. that morning. Leland Murphy, Troy's father and Linda's father-in-law, was on the phone.

"We have a long way to go here, I know. But it'll happen. I'm sure of that. We'll talk more tomorrow. Have Sheila set something up."

Troy recognized his father's tone of voice from when he was a kid. It was the don't start with me you don't know what you're talking about voice Leland always used when he wanted to end and win a conversation at the same time.

Leland Murphy motioned to Troy to have a seat on the worn, burgundy leather Chesterfield. Troy had just walked into his father's elegant office. Leland turned his back to the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows behind his desk, and faced his only son. Troy had to squint out at the dizzying view of lower Manhattan, since his father never drew the blinds — and Troy had lost his Ray Bans sailing over the weekend.

"Dad, I know business is business, but . . . "

"Troy, we're just in the preliminary investigation stage. No one's said we're going to sell St. Anselm's — or the land it sits on. And to a foreign concern, yet. But we've been hired to look into it."

Grogan, Murphy and Wyman had been retained by the Japanese conglomerate Ishiguro Industries to look into the possible sale — and financing of development — of the land that St. Anselm's occupied. It was one of the last "undeveloped" tracts in that part of Westchester County, and Ishiguro had over the last ten years been aggressively developing sites in the Northeast as upscale residential projects.

"Dad," Troy said, "I know the trustees have been considering selling off some of the land. The school needs the money. Bad, I know. I read the Alumni News. But I can't believe it's come to this."

Suddenly, as Troy reached for the unopened bottle of Evian sitting on the coffee table in front him, a pretty blonde head peeked in the door of his father's office.

"Leland, it's Isamu, about the Ishiguro deal."

Troy noticed that the head was attached to a tall, lithe figure swathed in black Donna Karan.

"Sorry, son. We'll have to do this another time," Leland Murphy said as he ushered Troy out of his office. Leland hated people listening to his telephone calls, no matter how innocuous they were. It was one of his many, varied eccentricities.

Moments later, as Troy walked down the hushed wood-paneled corridors of Grogan, Murphy, and Wyman toward his own office, he began daydreaming about the time when he might have a child of his own — a son or daughter to carry on the Murphy family tradition at St. Anselm's. If such a tradition still existed by the time he got around to raising a family!

But his thoughts kept drifting back to his father's office door, and the leggy blonde he'd seen only minutes before. In that instant, Troy knew he was in trouble, as he began obsessively wondering — to himself — who is she?

Copyright Š1996, Mark Gauthier, LLC All rights reserved. All characters, settings, and plots are purely fictional, and intended for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to actual settings, companies, or persons living or dead is unintended and purely coincidential.

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