Read Online Moons of Jupiter by Alice Munro - Free Book Online

everything she had done before. She did not think of making a living writing poetry, not only because the income would be so low but because she thought, as she had thought innumerable times in her life, that probably she would not write any more poems. She was thinking that she could not cook well enough to do it for pay but she could clean. There was at least one other guest-house besides the one where she was staying, and she had seen a sign advertising a motel. How many hours’ cleaning could she get if she cleaned all three places, and how much an hour did cleaning pay?
    There were four small tables in the dining room, but only one man was sitting there, drinking tomato juice. He did not look at her. A man who was probably the husband of the woman she had met earlier came in from the kitchen. He had a grayish-blond beard, and a downcast look. He asked Lydia’s name and took her to the table where the man was sitting. The man stood up, stiffly, and Lydia was introduced. The man’s name was Mr. Stanley and Lydia took him to be about sixty. Politely, he asked her to sit down.
    Three men in work clothes came in and sat down at another table. They were not noisy in any self-important or offensive way, but just coming in and disposing themselves around the table, they created an enjoyable commotion. That is, they enjoyed it, and looked as if they expected others to. Mr. Stanley bowed in their direction, it really was a little bow, not just a nod of the head. He said good evening.

    They asked him what there was for supper, and he said he believed it was scallops, with pumpkin pie for dessert.
    â€œThese gentlemen work for the New Brunswick Telephone Company,” he said to Lydia. “They are laying a cable to one of the smaller islands, and they stay here during the week.”
    He was older than she had thought at first. It did not show in his voice, which was precise and American, or in the movements of his hands, but in his small, separate, brownish teeth, and in his eyes, which had a delicate milky skin over the light-brown iris.
    The husband brought their food, and spoke to the workmen. He was an efficient waiter, but rather stiff and remote, rather like a sleep-walker, in fact, as if he did not perform this job in his real life. The vegetables were served in large bowls, from which they helped themselves. Lydia was glad to see so much food: broccoli, mashed turnips, potatoes, corn. The American took small helpings of everything and began to eat in a very deliberate way, giving the impression that the order in which he lifted forkfuls of food to his mouth was not haphazard, that there was a reason for the turnip to follow the potatoes, and for the deep-fried scallops, which were not large, to be cut neatly in half. He looked up a couple of times as if he thought of saying something, but he did not do it. The workmen were quiet now, too, laying into the food.
    Mr. Stanley spoke at last. He said, “Are you familiar with the writer Willa Cather?”
    â€œYes.” Lydia was startled, because she had not seen anybody reading a book for the past two weeks; she had not even noticed any paperback racks.
    â€œDo you know, then, that she spent every summer here?” “Here?”
    â€œOn this island. She had her summer home here. Not more than a mile away from where we are sitting now. She came here for eighteen years, and she wrote many of her books here. She wrote in a room that had a view of the sea, but now the trees have grown up and blocked it. She was with her great friend, Edith Lewis. Have you read A Lost Lady ?”
    Lydia said that she had.

    â€œIt is my favorite of all her books. She wrote it here. At least, she wrote a great part of it here.”
    Lydia was aware of the workmen listening, although they did not glance up from their food. She felt that even without looking at Mr. Stanley or each other they might manage to communicate an indulgent contempt. She thought she did