Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good Read Online Free Page B

Mazda into a parking spot across from the Local, a pretty good grab.
    ‘Dinner One, nine. Dinner Two, six.’
    ‘Dinner One, burgers, coleslaw, and baked beans, two pots,’ she said. ‘Dinner Two, your special ham, Puny’s potato salad, and we’ll have the second pot of beans.’
    ‘I’ll get Esther to make the OMC,’ he said. ‘It’ll serve both nights.’ He loved doing this stuff. ‘I’ll just take my low-fat yogurt and enjoy it in the garage.’
    He could see the whole thing—the gathering in the study around a long folding table laid with Nanny Howard’s tablecloth, the view to Baxter Park, sunlight slanting through the window on Esther Bolick’s unbeatable orange marmalade cake . . . and Dooley, there was Dooley wolfing his food and glad to be home but never letting on, and laughing, Dooley laughing, and later they would shoot pool in the dining room, and on the night of Dinner Two, Sammy would hammer the lot of them. Which reminded him . . .
    ‘Which reminds me,’ he said. ‘I promised Sammy I’d learn to shoot pool.’
    ‘Sammy being your instructor?’
    ‘May as well learn from the best.’
    ‘When Lace comes home, we’ll have her over,’ she said. ‘Lunch, I think. We’ll get to see the ring.’
    Ah, the ring. Lace’s ring from Tiffany was being resized when they traveled up the mountain the other night from the airport. Not exactly a friendship ring, Dooley had said, but not exactly an engagement ring, either.
    ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Yes.’ He needed to talk with the bright and beautiful girl whom he first met at Fernbank. She had worn a battered felt hat and carried a mattock and sack; he’d surprised her in the act of stealing Miss Sadie’s ferns. Now she was the adopted daughter of the town doctor and his wife, an honor student at the University of Virginia, and Dooley’s ‘intended,’ as they used to say in Mississippi. Things seemed to be coming up roses, albeit with a fair amount of thorns.
    Cynthia took the key from the ignition. ‘Remind me to get treats for Violet.’
    Heaven knows, his wife’s white cat was the biggest breadwinnerin the family. In addition to being the star of the long-famous
Violet
books for young readers, Violet was a winsome and agreeable creature whom he’d come to like very much.
    There had been, so far, a total of four white Violets to pose for and inspire the work of the author/illustrator, all but the current Violet now deceased. In their fictional incarnations, one or the other had gone to Paris, visited the Queen, attended school, vacationed in the country, played the piano, lived in a bookstore, you name it. Out rolled the
Violet
books and in rolled the dough.
    ‘Will do,’ he said. ‘Let’s keep Violet happy.’
    •   •   •
    I MPRESSED BY THEIR RECENT international travel, the proprietor of the Local checked them out personally.
    ‘Buy one, get one free,’ said Avis, bagging the two pink grapefruit.
    ‘Great. Thanks.’ He pulled out his wallet. ‘You should do coupons in the
Muse
.’
    ‘Too expensive,’ said Avis. ‘A Magic Marker, a sheet of butcher’s paper, and a little tape to stick it on the window—that does it for me. How about today’s special?’
    ‘Missed that.’
    ‘Medley of Root Vegetables. Beets, turnips, parsnips, carrots—already washed an’ in a reusable bag—four bucks. A little olive oil, a little thyme, rosemary, and sea salt; roast on four twenty-five for twenty minutes.’ Avis kissed his fingertips in the Italian fashion.
    ‘We’ll take a bag. But four bucks?’
    ‘Fresh and full of flavor, not wilted and half dead like in some stores I could name.’
    ‘Can we get fingerlings instead of parsnips?’
    ‘No substitutions,’ said Avis, punching around on the register screen.
    ‘How about a ham?’ he asked Avis. ‘Bone in. Third week of October.’
    ‘How about a valley ham you can cut with a fork—old-fashioned flavor, low on sodium, and exclusive to the Local?