As a rule, the residents of Hobe Sound preferred to gossip about the affairs of their servants rather than their peers, but in Woody’s case, his marriage was so outrageous that they made an exception. The information quickly spread that he had gotten Peggy Malkovich pregnant and then married her. They were quite sure which was the greater sin.
“For God’s sake, I can understand the boy getting her pregnant, but you don’t marry a waitress!”
The whole affair was a classic case of déjà vu. Twenty-four years earlier, Hobe Sound had been rocked by a similar scandal involving the Stanfords. Emily Temple, the daughter of one of the founding families, had committed suicide because her husband had gotten the children’s governess pregnant.
Woody Stanford made no secret of the fact that he hated his father, and the general feeling was that he had married the waitress out of spite, to show that he was a more honorable man than his father.
The only person invited to the wedding was Peggy’s brother, Hoop, who flew in from New York. Hoop was two years older than Peggy and worked in a bakery in the Bronx. He was tall and emaciated, with a pock-marked face and a heavy Brooklyn accent.
“You’re gettin’ a great girl,” he told Woody after the ceremony.
“I know,” Woody said tonelessly.
“You take good care of my sister, huh?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Yeah. Cool.”
An unmemorable conversation between a baker and the son of one of the wealthiest men in the world.
Four weeks after the wedding, Peggy lost the baby.
Hobe Sound is a very exclusive community, and Jupiter Island is the most exclusive part of Hobe Sound. The island is bordered on the west by the Intracoastal Waterway and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean. It is a haven of privacy—wealthy, self-contained, and protective, with more police per capita than in almost any other place in the world. Its residents pride themselves on being understated. They drive Tauruses or station wagons, and own small sailboats, an eighteen-foot Lightning or a twenty-four-foot Quickstep.
If one was not born to it, one had to earn the right to be a member of this Hobe Sound community. After the marriage between Woodrow Stanford and “that waitress,” the burning question was, What were the residents going to do about accepting the bride into their society?
Mrs. Anthony Pelletier, the doyen of Hobe Sound, was the arbiter of all social disputes, and her devout mission in life was to protect her community against parvenus and the nouveau riche. When newcomers arrived at Hobe Sound and were unfortunate enough to displease Mrs. Pelletier, it was her custom to have delivered to them, by her chauffeur, a leather traveling case. It was her way of informing them that they were not welcome in the community.
Her friends delighted in telling the story of the garage mechanic and his wife who had bought a house in Hobe Sound. Mrs. Pelletier had sent them her ritual traveling bag, and when the wife learned its significance, she laughed. She said, “If that old harridan thinks she can drive me out of this place, she’s crazy!”
But strange things began to happen. Workmen and repairmen were suddenly unavailable, the grocer was always out of items that she ordered, and it was impossible to become a member of the Jupiter Island Club or even to get a reservation at any of the good local restaurants. And no one spoke to them. Three months after receiving the suitcase, the couple sold their home and moved away.
So it was that when word of Woody’s marriage got out, the community held its collective breath. Excommunicating Peggy Malkovich would also mean excommunicating her popular husband. There were bets being quietly made.
For the first few weeks, there were no invitations to dinners or to any of the usual community functions. But the residents liked Woody and, after all, his grandmother on his mother’s side had been one of the founders of Hobe Sound. Gradually, people started inviting him and Peggy to their homes. They were eager to see what his bride was like.
“The old girl must have something special or Woody never would have married her.”