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presented the flowers. “With my compliments and sympathy, Mrs. Goodwinter.”
“Please call me Gritty. Everyone does,” she said. “And thank you for your kindness. Roses! I love roses! Let’s go into the keeping room. Every other place is torn up for inventory… Pug, honey, put these lovely flowers in a vase, will you? That’s a dear.”
The hundred-year-old farmhouse had many small rooms with wide floorboards and six-over-six windows with some of the original wavy glass. The mismatched furnishings were obviously family heirlooms, but the interior was self-consciously coordinated: blue-and-white tiles, blue-and-white calico curtains, and blue-white china on the plate rail. Antique cooking utensils hung in and around the large fireplace.
Gritty, said, “We’ve been hoping you would join the country club, Mr. Qwilleran.”
“I haven’t done any joining,” he said, “because I’m concentrating on writing a book.”
“Not about Pickax, I hope,” the widow said with a laugh. “It would be banned in Boston… Pug, honey, bring us a drink, will you?… What will you have, Mr. Qwilleran?”
“Ginger ale, club soda, anything like that. And everyone calls me Qwill.”
“How about a Coke with a little rum?” She was tempting him with sidelong glance. “Live it up, Qwill!”
“Thanks, but I’ve been on the wagon for several years.”
“Well, you’re doing something right! You look wonderfully healthy.” She appraised him from head to foot. “Are you happy in Moose County?”
“I’m getting used to it the fresh air, the relaxed lifestyle, the friendly people,” he said. “It must be a comfort to you, during this sad time, to have so many friends and relatives.”
“The relatives you can have!” she said airily. “But, yes I am fortunate to have good friends.”
Her daughter brought a tray of beverages, and Qwilleran raised his glass. “With hope for the future!”
“You’re so right!” said his hostess, flourishing a double old-fashioned. “Would you stay for lunch, Qwill? I’ve made a ham-and-spinach quiche with funeral leftovers. Pug, honey, see if it’s ready to come out of the oven. Stick a knife in it.”
The visit was not what Qwilleran had anticipated. He was required to shift abruptly from condolence to social chitchat. “You have a beautiful house,” he remarked.
“It may look good,” Gritty said, “but it’s a pain in the you-know-what. I’m tired of floors that slope and doors that creak and septic tanks that back up and stairs with narrow treads. God! They must have had small feet in the old days. And small bottoms! Look at those Windsor chairs! I’m selling the house and moving to an apartment in Indian Village near the golf course, you know.”
Pug said, “Mother is a champion golfer. She wins all the tournaments.”
“What will you do with your antiques when you move?” Qwilleran asked innocently.
“Sell them at auction. Do you like auctions? They’re the major pastime in Moose County next to potluck suppers and messing around.”
“Oh, Mother!” Pug remonstrated. She turned to Qwilleran. “That big rolltop desk belonged to my great-grandfather. He founded the Picayune.”
“It looks like a rolltop coffin,” her mother said. “I’ve been doomed to live with antiques all my life. Never liked them. Crazy, isn’t it?”
Lunch was served at a pine table in the kitchen, and the quiche arrived on blue-and-white plates.
Gritty said, “I hope this is the last meal I ever eat on blue china. It makes food look yukky, but the whole set was handed down in my husband’s family hundreds of pieces that refuse to break.”
“I was appalled,” Qwilleran said, “when the Picayune offices burned down. I was hoping the paper would continue to publish under Junior’s direction.”
“Poo on the Picayune,” said Gritty. “They should have pulled the plug thirty years ago.”
“But it’s unique in the annals of journalism. Junior could
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