Read Online Kate Remembered by A. Scott Berg - Free Book Online

contained hot fudge. One did; and we made huge sundaes.
    â€œNow we can rest,” Kate said. “Just read the papers or take a nap, or, no, better that you see the town, and then we can come back and swim before dinner.” Although her young driver from New York was there at the house, she suggested that we let him rest. So I took the two of us across the causeway in the white town car she leased from Hertz—“That’s the telegraph pole I drove into, nearly killed Phyllis, nearly killed me too”—then turned left into the village of Old Saybrook.
    We stopped first at Walt’s, a small grocery that Kate claimed had the best meat anywhere. She picked up steaks for dinner and a slab of unsliced bacon; and she grabbed a bag of bagel chips, which she proceeded to consume as we walked through the market. By the time we reached the checkout stand, she had to tell the checker who weighed what remained in her bag of chips to double it. She signed for the groceries. Then she took me through Patrick’s Country Store, a charming shop with a lot of plaid, woolen goods. She couldn’t find anything she wanted, but she insisted I meet the proprietor. We made a final stop at James Gallery and Soda Fountain, to pick up a few items, some newspapers and—so long as we were there—didn’t I want an ice-cream cone? I felt I had already eaten enough for two days, but she insisted that James had the best ice-cream cones anywhere. So she ordered maple walnut in a honey cone, and I went with chocolate in a plain cone. “You can’t order a plain cone,” she said. “They’re so boring. It’s like eating cardboard. They always taste stale.”
    â€œWell, this one is rather good,” I insisted, “crisp, crunchy, and it doesn’t fight the flavor of the ice cream the way your honey cone does.” She simply shook her head as though she could not comprehend anything so outrageous. “Get me out of here,” she said, muttering, “I never heard of anyone eating a plain cone.”
    We returned to the house; and though it was getting cloudy and cold, Kate was ready for a swim. I joined her and found my tolerance for the cold water had increased in just one day. Or maybe it was being in the water together and not being willing to get out until she had. After a few minutes, we both headed for the outdoor shower. By the time we met downstairs again, it was starting to rain. Kate suggested I start a fire while she rustled up a game of Parcheesi. “You do know how to play Parcheesi, don’t you?” she said.
    â€œOh sure,” I said, remembering Parcheesi from my childhood—you throw some dice and you move some green plastic pieces toward home. “Well, you couldn’t be worse than Phyllis,” said Kate with a competitive edge in her voice that I had not heard before, “so she’ll play with Dick, and you’ll be my teammate.” Dick—without his rooster hat, revealing a completely shaved head—entered the living room with a tray of mocha-flavored candy he had just cooked up. (Overcooked, actually, so these thin squares that were meant to be chewed had become hard candies of sugar, chocolate, and very strong coffee.) Everybody grabbed one while we set up the gameboard and chose our colors. “I have to be blue,” insisted Kate.
    It became apparent after my first couple of throws of the dice that the game was not exactly the one I remembered and that I had stepped onto a no-nonsense playing field. Kate looked at me with utter disgust, now stuck with me as her partner. Then I made the mistake of saying, “How hard can it be to pick up? I mean, it’s sort of like Chutes and Ladders. Seven-year-olds play this.”
    â€œWell, clearly you don’t have the brains of a seven-year-old!” she asserted, suggesting that I was missing all the subtleties of this ancient Hindu game. As she took to moving my