a neo-Georgian or plantation-style manor like it's similarly new and upscale neighbors, but a great rambling beige stucco affair—terra-cotta-tiled roof, great arched windows flanked by spiraled pilasters—resplendent with lights inside and out, including floodlit trees and shrubbery, it's
palazzo
design more suited in the Feltons' opinion to Venice or booming south Florida than to Maryland's Eastern Shore. "How'd it get past Heron Bay's house-plan police?" Meaning the Community Association's Design Review Board, whose okay was required on all building and landscaping proposals. Susan's guess was that Tidewater Communities, Inc., the developer of Heron Bay Estates and other projects on both shores of the Chesapeake, might have jiggered it through in hopes of attracting more million-dollar-house builders to HBE's several high-end detached-home neighborhoods, like Spartina Pointe. She too thought the thing conspicuously out of place in Rockfish Reach, but "You know what they say," she declared: "
De gustibus non est disputandum
"—her chosen party password, which she was pleased to have remembered from prep school days. "Is that the Gibsons ahead of us?"
It was, Dick could affirm when the couple—she bed-sheet-toga'd like Susan, but less appealingly, given her considerable heft; he wearing what looked like a white hospital gown set off by some sort of gladiator thing around his waist and hips—passed under a pair of tall floodlit pines flanking the entrance walkway: Hank and Becky Gibson, Oyster Covers like Sam Bailey, whom the Feltons knew only casually from the Club, Hank being the golfer and Becky the tennis player in their household.
"
Et tu, Brute!
" Sue called out (she really had been doing her homework; that "Bru-tay" phrase sounded familiar, but Dick couldn't place it). The Gibsons turned, laughed, waved, and waited; the foursome then joked and teased their way up the stone walk beside the "Eurocobble" driveway to #12's massive, porte-cochèred main entrance: a two-tiered platform with three wide, curved concrete steps up to the first marble-tiled landing, and another three to the second, where one of the tall, glass-paned, dark-wood-paneled double doors stood open and a slender, trim-toga'd woman, presumably their hostess, was greeting and admitting several other arrivals.
"A miniskirted toga?" Hank Gibson wondered aloud, for while the costume's thin white top had a fold-and-wrap toga look to it, below the elaborately figured multipaneled belt were a short white pleated skirt and sandal lacings entwined fetchingly almost to her knees. "
Amo amas amat!
" he then called ahead. The couple just entering turned and laughed, as did the hostess. Then Sam Bailey—whom the Feltons now saw stationed just inside the door, in a white terry-cloth robe of the sort provided in better-grade hotel rooms, belted with what appeared to be an army-surplus cartridge belt and topped with a defoliated wreath that looked a bit like Jesus' crown of thorns—called back, "
Amamus amatis amant!
" and gestured them to enter.
Their sleek-featured hostess—more Cleopatran even than Sue, with her short, straight, glossy dark hair encircled by a black metal serpent-band, it's asplike head rising from her brow as if to strike—turned her gleaming smile to them and extended her hand, first to Susan. "Hi! I'm Patsy Hardison. And you are?"
"Sue and Dick Felton," Sue responded, "from around the bend at Ten-Twenty Shoreside? What a beautiful approach to your house!"
"And a house to match it," Dick added, taking her hand in turn.
"I
love
your costumes!" their hostess exclaimed politely. "So
imaginative!
I know we've seen each other at the Club, but Tom and I are still sorting out names and faces and addresses, so please bear with us." As other arrivals were gathering behind them, she explained to all hands that after calling out their passwords to Sam Bailey, whom she and Tom had appointed to be their Centurion at the Gate, they would find
palazzo
design more suited in the Feltons' opinion to Venice or booming south Florida than to Maryland's Eastern Shore. "How'd it get past Heron Bay's house-plan police?" Meaning the Community Association's Design Review Board, whose okay was required on all building and landscaping proposals. Susan's guess was that Tidewater Communities, Inc., the developer of Heron Bay Estates and other projects on both shores of the Chesapeake, might have jiggered it through in hopes of attracting more million-dollar-house builders to HBE's several high-end detached-home neighborhoods, like Spartina Pointe. She too thought the thing conspicuously out of place in Rockfish Reach, but "You know what they say," she declared: "
De gustibus non est disputandum
"—her chosen party password, which she was pleased to have remembered from prep school days. "Is that the Gibsons ahead of us?"
It was, Dick could affirm when the couple—she bed-sheet-toga'd like Susan, but less appealingly, given her considerable heft; he wearing what looked like a white hospital gown set off by some sort of gladiator thing around his waist and hips—passed under a pair of tall floodlit pines flanking the entrance walkway: Hank and Becky Gibson, Oyster Covers like Sam Bailey, whom the Feltons knew only casually from the Club, Hank being the golfer and Becky the tennis player in their household.
"
Et tu, Brute!
" Sue called out (she really had been doing her homework; that "Bru-tay" phrase sounded familiar, but Dick couldn't place it). The Gibsons turned, laughed, waved, and waited; the foursome then joked and teased their way up the stone walk beside the "Eurocobble" driveway to #12's massive, porte-cochèred main entrance: a two-tiered platform with three wide, curved concrete steps up to the first marble-tiled landing, and another three to the second, where one of the tall, glass-paned, dark-wood-paneled double doors stood open and a slender, trim-toga'd woman, presumably their hostess, was greeting and admitting several other arrivals.
"A miniskirted toga?" Hank Gibson wondered aloud, for while the costume's thin white top had a fold-and-wrap toga look to it, below the elaborately figured multipaneled belt were a short white pleated skirt and sandal lacings entwined fetchingly almost to her knees. "
Amo amas amat!
" he then called ahead. The couple just entering turned and laughed, as did the hostess. Then Sam Bailey—whom the Feltons now saw stationed just inside the door, in a white terry-cloth robe of the sort provided in better-grade hotel rooms, belted with what appeared to be an army-surplus cartridge belt and topped with a defoliated wreath that looked a bit like Jesus' crown of thorns—called back, "
Amamus amatis amant!
" and gestured them to enter.
Their sleek-featured hostess—more Cleopatran even than Sue, with her short, straight, glossy dark hair encircled by a black metal serpent-band, it's asplike head rising from her brow as if to strike—turned her gleaming smile to them and extended her hand, first to Susan. "Hi! I'm Patsy Hardison. And you are?"
"Sue and Dick Felton," Sue responded, "from around the bend at Ten-Twenty Shoreside? What a beautiful approach to your house!"
"And a house to match it," Dick added, taking her hand in turn.
"I
love
your costumes!" their hostess exclaimed politely. "So
imaginative!
I know we've seen each other at the Club, but Tom and I are still sorting out names and faces and addresses, so please bear with us." As other arrivals were gathering behind them, she explained to all hands that after calling out their passwords to Sam Bailey, whom she and Tom had appointed to be their Centurion at the Gate, they would find
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