Read Online The Good House: A Novel by Ann Leary - Free Book Online

innocence, ordered a “regular.” The dirty, blond, dreadlocked girl behind the counter just blinked at me.
    “Um, a regular what?” she asked.
    “A regular coffee,” I snapped. “This is a coffee shop, isn’t it?”
    In Massachusetts, a “regulah” means a coffee with cream and two sugars. It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned that this is a Massachusetts thing. I thought that’s how everybody ordered coffee. If you wanted a coffee with just cream, it was “a regulah, no sugah.” Now I’m learning that it’s a generational thing as well. Younger people order coffees that are “grande,” or “dry,” or “Americano,” or some other craziness, and they don’t mind spending three or even four dollars on a coffee. I left my coffee sitting on the counter that first day when the girl told me the price, and now I stay away from the Coffee Bean unless I have a client who really wants a latte or whatever, and then I’m forced to resign myself to Henry Barlow’s overly enthusiastic “Hildy! How ah ya?”
    “Fine, thanks, Henry. And you?” I’d say.
    “I’m good, Hildy. Wicked good. Haven’t seen ya around.”
    “No?” is usually my response
    “Whatcha been up to?” he brays.
    “Working,” I say with a forced smile. “Some of us have to work for a living.”
    “Well, nice to see ya, Hildy. Take it easy,” he always says, and then he starts to give me that solemn smile, but I usually dodge it by turning my attention elsewhere. Why not shout, “One day at a time”? Or “It’s the first drink that gets you drunk”?
    The AA slogans. The cult’s incantations.
    I would say, “You take it easy, too, Henry,” but that’s all Henry does. Take it easy. It was no wonder he lived in that old shack near the boatyard, while the McAllisters built playrooms and sunrooms and tended the gardens on his old family homestead.
    I had clients coming from Boston one cool morning in early October and we had planned to meet at the Coffee Bean. The wife told me that she would need a coffee after the drive, and we made plans to meet there at nine. When I entered the shop at 8:50, the clients, a young couple named Sanderson, were there, and I saw that Henry had already engaged them in conversation.
    “Yup, lived here all my life. Never seen any reason to live anywhere else.… Oh, there she is. Hildy, how ah ya?”
    “I’m fine, thank you, Henry,” I replied.
    “These are yer customers, the … What’d you tell me yer names ah?”
    I reached out my hand to Hillary Sanderson, whom I had talked to on the phone. “Hi, Hillary, I’m Hildy Good. And you must be Rob.”
    I saw that they already had their coffees, so I suggested they follow me to my office, where they could park their car and then ride around town with me. As I followed them through the door, Henry bellowed after me, “See ya, Hildy. Take it easy.”
    “You take it easy, too, Henry,” I called back. “And stop working so hard.” I could hear his booming laughter as I followed the Sandersons out to the street.
    Whenever I have out-of-town clients, I always give them a little tour of the town of Wendover. We start at my office building, which was originally a house but is the only building on Wendover Green that’s commercially zoned. My offices—the offices of Good Realty—are on the first floor. On the second floor are the offices of Dr. Peter Newbold, psychiatrist, and Katrina Frankel, LSCW.
    Our building, like all the other houses on Wendover Green, is an honest rectangular clapboard structure, erected in the late 1700s. It was once the parsonage for the Congregational church next door. The white-steepled Congregational church no longer needs a parsonage, as the number of congregants has dwindled over the years, not only here in Wendover but also in nearby Essex, and now both churches are served by one minister, Jim Caldwell. The Reverend Caldwell and his family live in Essex, where he conducts a nine A.M. service every Sunday,