Lin-Lin Lavery

As your scribe was peacefully doing his New York Time Times crossword puzzle yesterday morning on the stone wall in front of St. Mary's, he was startled to hear a loud female voice saying, “Hi, Bill Clark, what’s happening?” The speaker was Lin-Lin Lavery, the pushy Selectman of the Town of Greenwich who seems actively to enjoy injecting herself into situations where she is uninvited and unwanted. Prior to this unexpected encounter, her demeanor towards your scribe had been one ranging from simply ignoring him to downright avoidance of him. Which was fine by him. So what could account for this abrupt change in her behavior?

Frankly, your scribe had absolutely no interest in finding out. He has heard eoungh comments around Town recently about Lin-Lin’s habitual rudeness, and here she was in the flesh demonstrating the truth of those assertions. Reluctantly, your scribe lowered his newspaper to ponder the situation.

"What's happening?" What kind of inane question is that, anyway? Was she perhaps asking about the local scene (it's Sidewalk Sales Days, duh), the national scene (messy), or perchance the international scene (even messier)? The most obvious answer, of course, would have been to say that she was inconsiderately interrupting your scribe's train of thought, but he is too well-bred to have done so.

”We haven’t formally met,” she said next to your scribe, thus stating the screamingly obvious. So why, then, was she noisily accosting him like this without a proper introduction? Doesn’t the Junior League have rules about that sort of thing? Had she been with your scribe at the Palace a month ago, and behaved thusly with the Queen, she would have been unceremoniously tossed out on her ear.

Lin-Lin had been written up in the Local Rag, aka Yellowwich Time, that same morning for having attacked the First Selectman, Peter Tesei, for the fact that some senior citizens in Town have been denied tax relief. Since the decision to cut back the program was made by the Board of Estimate and Taxation, not by the First Selectman, her attack was more than a bit of a non-sequitur. Peter's comment was, ""Sounds like a lot of cheap political rhetoric from a politician." Bingo, Peter.

And thus, given Lin-Lin’s less than savory, not to say deteriorating, reputation around Town, your scribe had absolutely no interest in changing the current status between himself and her. So he simply replied, “I know we haven’t. Let’s leave it that way.”

The look on her face was priceless, dear reader: surprise, astonishment, disbelief, denial, and anger passed over it in quick succession. “Well!” she huffed. And then,“Have a nice day.” Which, as everyone knows, is cop-speak for “F**k you,” usually said after handing out a ticket to an errant motorist. Our non-introduction was complete. She marched away in high dudgeon, and your scribe returned his attentions to his newspaper.

And thus, dear reader, it took your scribe a few minutes longer than usual to complete the Times crossword puzzle yesterday, the theme of which turned out to be, "It adds up." Yup. That made sense. Everything he had heard about Lin-Lin's boorish, arrogant, and self-centered behavior was true. As he now had had occasion to see for himself. It all added up.

Such a pity that her stint at the Junior League does not seem to have taught her any manners. Well, it's too late now. She has made her bed in the Town of Greenwich, and now she must lie in it. And, like the national and international situations, it seems to be getting messier by the day.