Apparently now they involved me talking out loud to myself. Not even back in town one day, and I was losing my mind.
“You’re not losing your mind, dear,” my mother offered, and I looked at her with wide eyes.
“Did I say that out loud too?” I asked, shrinking down into my seat. “What the hell did you put in this coffee?”
“You didn’t, but I know my daughter. You’re thinking this small town is already making you crazy, right?”
“Possibly,” I allowed. After a moment of inspecting the flecked linoleum top of the table, I nonchalantly asked, “So, what route?”
“Hmm?”
“You said route.”
“When did I say route?”
“A minute ago.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“Mother.”
“Oh, you mean Leo’s route?”
“That’d be the one you mentioned,” I said, nodding. Her memory was fine, by the way. Her sense of humor, however, was twisted. “So, the guy with the route . . .”
“Yes, dear?” she asked innocently.
“That’s it, I’m going home.” I started to pull myself out of the booth.
“Oh, relax. Stay and drink your coffee; I’m just teasing,” she said, waving me back down. “So, what do you want to know about the guy with the route? Although I like to think of him as the guy with the eyes—did you see his eyes?”
“His eyes are an interesting shade of green, I’ll give you that,” I admitted, knowing that until I did, I’d get nowhere. “Who is he?”
“He’s from the Maxwell Farm; he sells produce to all the local restaurants. Every week, he brings something special by. This week it was walnuts.”
“The Maxwell Farm?”
“The very one.”
“Someone is actually farming that land now?”
“Oh yeah, they’ve turned that entire place around! He’s got the orchards back on line, the greenhouses, the fields are producing again—oh, it’s just wonderful.”
“When did all this happen?”
“You haven’t been here in how many years, Roxie? Things haven’t exactly stood still just because you weren’t here.” Her face was neutral, but her voice was a little sharper than normal.
“I realize that,” I said, twirling my coffee cup in its saucer. I felt a small tug. I had been gone a long time. But I tamped it down, keeping my attention on the farmer.
The Maxwell Farm was legend in this part of the country. Hell, the Maxwells were legend, in all parts of the country. Old New York. Old money. Old banking family. Have a mortgage? It was probably held by a Maxwell bank at some point. Lease a car? Probably guaranteed by a Maxwell bank at some point. Invested in mutual funds? If it has to do with the stock market, the Maxwell Banking Family of Greater New York is likely involved.
And like all old wealthy families, they occasionally like to leave their Manhattan apartment, or their Hamptons seaside “cottage,” or their Palm Beach winter house, and head up for some good old-fashioned rustic country life on their “farm.”
Farm in the loosest sense of the word imaginable. What do you think of when you hear the word farm? Ten or twenty acres around an old family farmhouse and a weathered red barn, somewhere in one of those states you fly over? Perhaps a lazy barn cat. Perhaps a chicken or two. Perhaps if you’re very lucky, and also adorable, you might even envision a moo cow.
If you’re slightly less romantic and slightly more aware, you might imagine a different vision entirely. Hundreds and hundreds of acres farming one crop, probably feed corn or soybeans, with no old farmhouse or barn. There’d probably been several on this giant property at one point, but they all sold their land in one huge land consolidation, and the structures have been torn down or left to the elements. There’s maybe one large equipment “barn,” and definitely no moo cow.
But Maxwell Farm? It’s an idyllic, look-how-salt-of-the-earth-and-how-cute-are-we-in-these-overalls “farm.” In the late 1800s, when the Maxwells were already firmly entrenched into New York’s social elite, they purchased a large plot of land in the Hudson Valley. This was not uncommon back then: the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the Carnegies all owned farms. Enormous acreages, beautiful and elaborate stone “farmhouses” complete with equally beautiful stone barns, riding paths, teahouses, fountains, and gazebos. And occasionally, these farms might actually plant a crop or two.
It started out as a place to get away from the daily grind of being wealthy—as one does. The main house and the barns were situated high on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River. The enormous stone barns were mostly used to house cattle, as it was once a working dairy farm. The land was used for some farming—mostly vegetables and fruit orchards—but most of the acreage was set aside as a nature preserve. Some fields were cleared for hunting, as the Maxwells hosted large parties for their city friends, the men scaring up quail and pheasant, while the ladies visited the gardens and the orchards and the orangerie.
The Maxwells were in residence only a few times a year. The rest of the time the land was worked by hired hands and groundskeepers, making sure it was always ready for the city folk. As time passed, most of the land went fallow, the fields were retaken by the woods, and the house was shuttered for years at a time. I suppose the Maxwells had found other places to “get away” to.
The home and barns fell into disrepair, and the property became a lonely estate on the edge of town. In the 1970s, the new Mrs. Maxwell became interested in the history of the family she’d married into and began a restoration of the house. No one ever lived there for any length of time, but tours were given on special occasions, and my own fourth-grade class trotted up there on a field trip to marvel over the views and the house and the grandeur.