unrelenting rains, which turned the new red clay roads leading out to their house into tortuous slicks, deeply rutted, with long wide puddles of muddy red water, sometimes just frozen at the edges. Cold damp drafts penetrated their barnlike house; outside, in the woods, everything dripped, boughs sagged, and no birds sang.
March was a little better: not yet spring, none of the promised balmy Southern blue, and no flowers, but at least the weather cleared; and the blustery winds, though cold, helped to dry the roads, and to cleanse the air.
And, one night at dinner, Sarah announced that she had met a really wonderful woman, in a bookstore. “My new best friend,” she said, with a tiny, half-apologetic laugh, as Jonathan’s heart sank, a little. They both knew her tendency toward somewhat ill-advised enthusiasms: the charming editor who turned out to be a lively alcoholic, given to midnight (and later) phone calls; the smart young film critic who made it instantly clear that she hated all their other friends. The long line of initially wonderful people, the new bestfriends, who in one way or another became betrayers of Sarah’s dreams of friendship.
However, there was another, larger group of friends she’d had for years, who were indeed all that Sarah said they were, smart and loyal and generous and fun. Jonathan liked those friends, now his friends, too. Life with Sarah had, in fact, made him more gregarious, changing him from a solitary, overeducated young man with a boring corporation job, despite an advanced degree in math, into a warmer, friendlier person. Sarah’s talkative, cheery friends were among her early charms for Jonathan. He simply wondered at her occasional lapses in judgment.
Hattie McElroy, the new best friend (and the owner, it turned out, of the bookstore where they had met), was very Southern, Sarah said; she was from Hilton. However, except for her accent (which Sarah imitated, very funnily), she did not seem Southern. “She reads so much, I guess it gives her perspective,” Sarah said. And, with a small pleased laugh, “She doesn’t like it here very much. She says she’s so tired of everyone she knows. They’re moving to Santa Fe in June. Unfortunately, for me.”
After that, all Sarah’s days seemed to include a visit to Hattie’s bookstore, where Hattie served up mugs of tea, Sarah said, along with “super” gossip about everyone in town. “There’s an old group that’s unbelievably stuffy,” Sarah reported to Jonathan. “People Hattie grew up with. They never even want to meet anyone new. Especially Yankees.” And she laughed, happy to have such an exclusive connection with her informative and amusing new friend.
“Any chance you could take over the bookstore when they leave?” asked Jonathan, early on. “Maybe we could buy it?” This was during the period of Sarah’s unhappy discovery about the work situation in Hilton, the gradually apparent fact of there being nothing for her.
“Well, the most awful thing. She sold it to a chain, and just before we got here. She feels terrible, but she says there didn’t seem any other way out, no one else came around to buy it. And the chain people are even bringing in their own manager.” Sarah’s laugh was rueful, and her small chin pointed downward as she added, “One more dead end. And damn, it would have been perfect for me.”
The next step, Jonathan dimly imagined, would be a party or dinner of some sort at the McElroys’, which he could not help mildly dreading, as he remembered the film critic’s party, at which not only was almost everyone else gay (that would have been all right, except that some of the women did seem very hostile, to him) but they all smoked—heavily, some of them pipes and cigars—in three tiny rooms on Horatio Street.
However, it was they who were to entertain the McElroys at dinner, Sarah told him. “And I think just the four of us,” she added. “That way it’s easier, and I can make
March was a little better: not yet spring, none of the promised balmy Southern blue, and no flowers, but at least the weather cleared; and the blustery winds, though cold, helped to dry the roads, and to cleanse the air.
And, one night at dinner, Sarah announced that she had met a really wonderful woman, in a bookstore. “My new best friend,” she said, with a tiny, half-apologetic laugh, as Jonathan’s heart sank, a little. They both knew her tendency toward somewhat ill-advised enthusiasms: the charming editor who turned out to be a lively alcoholic, given to midnight (and later) phone calls; the smart young film critic who made it instantly clear that she hated all their other friends. The long line of initially wonderful people, the new bestfriends, who in one way or another became betrayers of Sarah’s dreams of friendship.
However, there was another, larger group of friends she’d had for years, who were indeed all that Sarah said they were, smart and loyal and generous and fun. Jonathan liked those friends, now his friends, too. Life with Sarah had, in fact, made him more gregarious, changing him from a solitary, overeducated young man with a boring corporation job, despite an advanced degree in math, into a warmer, friendlier person. Sarah’s talkative, cheery friends were among her early charms for Jonathan. He simply wondered at her occasional lapses in judgment.
Hattie McElroy, the new best friend (and the owner, it turned out, of the bookstore where they had met), was very Southern, Sarah said; she was from Hilton. However, except for her accent (which Sarah imitated, very funnily), she did not seem Southern. “She reads so much, I guess it gives her perspective,” Sarah said. And, with a small pleased laugh, “She doesn’t like it here very much. She says she’s so tired of everyone she knows. They’re moving to Santa Fe in June. Unfortunately, for me.”
After that, all Sarah’s days seemed to include a visit to Hattie’s bookstore, where Hattie served up mugs of tea, Sarah said, along with “super” gossip about everyone in town. “There’s an old group that’s unbelievably stuffy,” Sarah reported to Jonathan. “People Hattie grew up with. They never even want to meet anyone new. Especially Yankees.” And she laughed, happy to have such an exclusive connection with her informative and amusing new friend.
“Any chance you could take over the bookstore when they leave?” asked Jonathan, early on. “Maybe we could buy it?” This was during the period of Sarah’s unhappy discovery about the work situation in Hilton, the gradually apparent fact of there being nothing for her.
“Well, the most awful thing. She sold it to a chain, and just before we got here. She feels terrible, but she says there didn’t seem any other way out, no one else came around to buy it. And the chain people are even bringing in their own manager.” Sarah’s laugh was rueful, and her small chin pointed downward as she added, “One more dead end. And damn, it would have been perfect for me.”
The next step, Jonathan dimly imagined, would be a party or dinner of some sort at the McElroys’, which he could not help mildly dreading, as he remembered the film critic’s party, at which not only was almost everyone else gay (that would have been all right, except that some of the women did seem very hostile, to him) but they all smoked—heavily, some of them pipes and cigars—in three tiny rooms on Horatio Street.
However, it was they who were to entertain the McElroys at dinner, Sarah told him. “And I think just the four of us,” she added. “That way it’s easier, and I can make
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