Part 14 (1/2)

Let, your life had said, its only order.

And did you have a choice in this? You did- Sleeping and waking,

the horses around you, the mountains around you,

The buildings with their tall, hydraulic shafts.

Those of your own kind around you-

A few times, you stood on your head.

A few times, you chose not to be frightened.

A few times, you held another beyond any measure.

A few times, you found yourself held beyond any measure.

Mortal, your life will say,

As if tasting something delicious, as if in envy.

Your immortal life will say this, as it is leaving.

-JANE HIRSHFIELD

WHERE THE G.o.d OF LOVE HANGS OUT.

Farnham is a small town. It has a handful of buildings for the public good and two gas stations and several small businesses, which puzzle everyone (who buys the expensive Italian ceramics, the copper jewelry, the badly made wooden toys?). It has a pizza place and a coffee shop called The Cup.

Ray Watrous looked in The Cup's big window as he walked past. He saw the woman he'd represented in a malpractice suit ten years ago because laminated veneers kept falling out of her mouth. He saw the girl who used to babysit for them when Neil and Jennifer were small, now a fat, homely young woman holding a fat, homely little kid on her lap. He saw his daughter-in-law, Macy, at a table by herself, her gold hair practically falling into her cup, tears running down her face. Ray turned around and went inside. He liked Macy. He was also curious and he was semiretired and he was in no hurry to go to Town Hall and argue with Farnham's first selectman, a decent man suddenly inclined to get in bed with Stop & Shop and put a supermarket in the north end of town, where wild turkeys still gathered.

Ray liked having his son and Macy nearby. Sometimes Ray went down to New Haven for lunch and sometimes Neil drove up to Farnham, on his way to the county courthouse. They talked about sports, and local politics and the collapse of Western civilization. The week before, Neil mentioned that a girl he'd dated in high school was going to run for governor and Ray told Neil that Abe Callender, who shot out the winds.h.i.+eld of his own car when he'd found his girlfriend and her girlfriend in it, a few years back, was now a state trooper in Farnham.

”Can I join you?” Ray said.

Macy twisted away from him, as if that would keep him from seeing her tears and then she twisted back and took her bag off the other chair.

”Of course,” she said.

Randeane, the owner and only waitress of The Cup, brought Ray a black coffee and put down two ginger scones with a dollop of whipped honey on the side.

Ray said, ”These scones have Dunkin' Donuts beat all to h.e.l.l.”

Randeane thanked him. ”Cream and sugar?”

Ray, who was normally a polite man, said, ”The coffee could stand a little fixing up, I guess.”

Randeane put her pencil in her pocket and said, ”People love our coffee. It's fair trade. Everyone loves our Viennese Roast and our French Roast and I believe people come here for our coffee.”

Ray said, ”I hate to disagree, but they come for the pastries or the atmosphere or because of you but they don't come for the coffee.”

”I beg your pardon,” Randeane said.

Macy laughed and said, ”Wow, Ray.”

”I'm just saying, people don't come for the coffee.”

”I'll make you a fresh cup.”

Randeane brought him another coffee and Ray drank it. It wasn't great. Macy ate a little bit of her scone and she sighed. Two high school girls sat down at the table next to them.

”I'm not r.e.t.a.r.ded,” the skinny girl with pierced eyebrows said.

”I know. But, duh, you can't go for a job interview looking like that.” The other girl was chubby and cheerful and in a pink uniform.

”Fine,” the skinny girl said. ”Fix me.”

Macy and Ray watched the two girls walk hand in hand into the ladies' room.