Sputterpub's Blog

And so it came to pass. The friends decided they should limit their action to just one of Melissa’s corners. Rose put in the work order and although the city crew of three didn’t see any obvious problem with the hurdle they removed, they also didn’t wonder that the order specified use of the taller model for replacement. They performed their tasks and left.

Melissa wasn’t there to witness the first scraping incident, but she later understood it didn’t happen to too many cars before word got around. Nineteen citizens signed the complaint, and nine of them had had to pay for chassis work.

How could she or Rose have known about the ordinance? Berkeley has as many laws as Macy’s has items; no one has the energy to view them all (Melissa knows a lot about Macy’s and other department stores; she’s the daughter of a shopaholic mother still active and driving at 83; all her life Melissa has been coerced to stride those halls). It turns out that it was okay to install the taller hurdle, but not to omit the sign warning the drivers about the change in height in the equipment the driver wasn’t supposed to drive over anyway.

The work order was examined. Rose was interrogated. Melissa advised her to come clean; their little escapade wasn’t worth sacrifices. But once the complainers knew two city employees were involved, conspiracy was added to the accusations.

The situation tipped almost to viral. Both Melissa and Rose were suspended with pay. Each was summoned to the hearing.

Melissa awoke that morning tense. She hadn’t slept well, and her mood didn’t improve when she discovered that her favorite blouse, the one she intended to wear for luck during this dread morning, had lost a sleeve button. An unusual irreplaceable button. It was a loss that could only be accommodated if she changed the button arrangement on both sleeves, which she didn’t have time for then, so she’d have to wear another.

But the capper came when Melissa made the third worst mess in her life. She always shook the coffee grounds from the filter cone into the tall garbage can in her kitchen, before she left her place. This time her lower back tweaked just as she was dumping the grounds. The pain caused her to jerk slightly, removing her foot from the pedal and allowing the garbage can lid to begin its noiseless descent. At least a third of the wet coffee grounds made it into the garbage can. The rest hit the can top, the walls, and the screened windows like wet beach sand.

It was dreadful. Impossible. Laughable. And laughing is what Melissa did.

After it was all over, both lost their jobs. The barriers stayed up and the hurdles stayed low. But nobody died. Kim returned from Germany a wiser and nicer daughter. Rose volunteered in a community dance program, and that led in a surprisingly short time to a low-paying but permanent position. Melissa is still looking. She lives inexpensively, and she will inherit a fair amount from her mother. She and Kim may open a shop.

Melissa was irritated even before she left her place. She hadn’t slept well. She discovered when she pulled on her new tights that she’d accidentally purchased control-top. And then she chipped her favorite coffee mug. She was eating peach yogurt and drinking French roast while moving around getting ready for work, and her 58-year old brain confused the consumables; she lifted her mug with her muscles expecting the light-weight yogurt container, and her grasp failed.

So when she witnessed a law-breaker in her neighborhood, she wanted a consequence to fit the crime.

The city of Berkeley maintains traffic-calming devices. Residential streets between the hills and the bay feature roundabouts or barriers at many corners, forcing drivers to slow in the intersections or to make turns athwart their intended direction. Melissa’s street had barriers at each end. There was a gap in the blockade large enough to admit a fire engine or other emergency vehicle, and planted in the center of the gap was a raised little hurdle of steel, intended to prohibit regular vehicles from using the gap.

Since the installation of the barriers, cars had gotten taller. More folks were buying van-type vehicles with higher clearance. Most vehicles bigger than roadsters could make it over the steel hurdle. That’s what Melissa witnessed: a woman driving a white Subaru, ignoring the warning sign and the threat of a fine, surmounting the hurdle and defeating the barriers.

With impunity. Melissa felt outrage. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen such a maneuver. She was pretty sure that if she hung out at her corner with a clipboard she could log dozens of such events each day.

“Or a camera instead of a clipboard,” she thought as she proceeded down the hill toward her office. If she could get pictures of these drive-throughs, with the license plate included, she wondered if the city would issue tickets.

One of the benefits of working for the city of Berkeley is the free Y membership. Melissa used hers. That’s how she met and befriended Rose, who had a position with DPT. They got together for lunch.

“Oh, I don’t think your picture plan will work,” Rose said after Melissa described her morning. The two women were eating matching salads while they waited for their mushroom pizza. “Citizens’ arrests are rare, and citizens’ citations more so.”

“Well something should be done,” Melissa countered. “I mean, I’m not a huge fan of the barriers and I doubt that my little street would be much worse without them, but if they’re there they should be enforced.” She poured half a packet of sugar into her iced tea and stirred it. “It’s like the Ashby Avenue thing – posted at 25 mph but all the traffic goes faster if it can, so everyone is forced to “speed” and that’s taught us all to ignore the signs – we need to mean our rules or dump them.”

“Whoa, girlfriend. Are you okay? This campaign seems a little extreme…” Rose paused as the waiter approached, and helped him rearrange their table to receive the pizza. “Is Kim hassling you again?”

That made Melissa smile. “Actually no. For the first time in awhile we seem okay. She’s even been asking my advice. Dieter’s been pressuring her to come to Germany and she’s not sure what to do.”

“Now? What’s Kim: 40?”

“Thirty-eight. And he is her father. I know he’s a flake, but I can understand Kim’s ambivalence. And she’s between jobs now. She has some time.”

“Do you want to go?”

“God no. I saw enough of Dieter back then. Everyone admired those year-abroad programs when I was in college, but I wonder how many dual-citizenship babies came of it. Almost like war kids.” Melissa took a messy bite of her pizza slice and kept talking around it. “I’m okay. I’ve just really had it with some drivers in my neighborhood.” She put her food down and gulped iced tea. “Wait: what if we could get the city to raise it?”

“The fine?”

“No. The steel hurdle that’s supposed to stop the cars. What if they just replaced what’s there with something a bit taller? Oh, I’m loving it: not only would that stop the maneuver, but the first time the asshole driver tries it, she or he will damage their car. What a way to learn!”

Rose considered. Drank some of her own iced tea. “You know, that could be arranged.”

Melissa smiled wider than she had all day. “You think?”

“I know. Don’t forget where I work.”

(9)

Jenny was still on the phone when Jeff went into his study. He’d already talked to his parents and Linda, just because they were together and his mother insisted, and he wasn’t particularly interested in watching Jenny fend off his mother’s words or sink into a long one with her old friend. He was glad that the tension between Linda and Jenny seemed to be dying down, but he had work to do and games to play, so he wasn’t around when the subject switched to him. Linda still had clients in the Atlanta area, and one small engineering firm had an opening that Jeff would be perfect for. But Jenny remembered the owners from when she worked with Linda. She’d despised the woman partner (Linda always suspected Jenny was jealous of Kit’s success) and she actually said to Linda that she wouldn’t let Jeff even interview there. Linda wondered as their call ended if the family protocol permitted her to go directly to Jeff.

Meanwhile, Jeff was reading Linda’s response to his response to her comment of a few days ago.

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 19:37:24 – 0600
From: linda960@mindspring.com
Subject: RE: Ma & Pa Cooper
To: oboy@earthlink.net
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook CWS, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0)
Importance: Normal

Thanks for the story, bro! I never heard it all that way before. I guess that’s what I get for moving away, cause I don’t think I’ve been tuning things out.
Still and all, I wonder. I mean, impractical as it would have been, I wonder if our not-one-penny-in-tribute father should have fought the thing. Money isn’t everything. I guess I was lucky to be caught without insurance when I got sued. I mean, it was really scary, but it was interesting how I got used to the scariness. And when it was all over, I got a lot of satisfaction spending that money to make it go away. I fear our mother’s practical advice was at work here. I wonder how it woulda been if she’d encouraged him to go for it…
xxoo-L

—-Original Message—-
From: oboy@earthlink.net
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 10:29 PM
To: linda960@mindspring.com
Subject: Ma & Pa Cooper

Sis:
I completely disagree. Dad retired at exactly the right time. Maybe he’s made wrong decisions since, but I would have done what he did when he did it about the biz. I agree he should volunteer teach or something. Good luck with that!
I don’t think you ever heard the whole story about the lawsuit. There was nothing wrong with the design of the AR plant. One weekend, a middle manager was giving a tour to some visiting honchos, and one of the guests pressed a button he shouldn’t have. That wasn’t the real problem – the system was designed to take that sort of error – but it made a noise like when you try to start a car that’s already going, and that totally freaked out the manager, who then started frantically pushing buttons, pulling levers and (soon) overriding safety mechanisms, so the asshole finally got the place to explode. No one was hurt, not even the asshole manager. But a hole was blown through the roof by a piece of flying equipment, and that piece was integral to the operation of the plant. We were called, they confessed their errors, and Dad & I dropped everything to go there and fix things. He got the call the next week. From one of his buddies among the AR attorneys. Sorry to tell you this, Owen, but we gotta sue you. Nothing you did, mind you – we’re all aware you saved the day – but damage was done and things have to be paid for, so we cast the net as wide as possible.
Dad was going to fight it, of course. But then his insurance company explained that it would cost at least $250,000 to take the thing to court, and for a quarter of a million dollars, they could settle the case. So he really had no choice. It soured the shit out of him. He couldn’t have continued after that. And along came a timely buyer.
Jeff

At 11:41 AM 6/24/2003 -0600 you wrote:
>I think our parents are nuts. The more I watch this aimless travel, these doctor-
>filled days at home, her sniping and his growing frailty, the more I wonder why he >retired. It’s enough to make me rethink my own plans.
>How’s Jenny doing? Hope her rash is gone. I’ll drop her a note. We should talk >sometime.
>Linda

Jeff was certain that if he were faced with the same choices at the same time in his life, he’d do exactly as Owen had.

(10)

“I have no regrets but if I had it to do over again, I’d make some different choices.” Grace’s fingers were in constant motion as she picked her cuticles.

“Really? I think I can say exactly the opposite! I have some definite regrets but I’m pretty sure I’d make the same choices again.”

Grace and Linda were having Sunday afternoon coffee. They never did that. But Owen and Mark were in Denver at a baseball game, and without planning anything the women settled into Grace’s kitchen with big steaming mugs.

“No, I’m pretty sure I’d have sex before marriage. I would have for sure if we’d had the pill. It was only fear of pregnancy. Not fear of sex.”

“You think?” Linda grinned to soften the question, but the mother she knew was too inhibited to even get naked; it was impossible for Linda to see her as a free-loving libertine. Kooky party girl: sure, but she had to draw the imaginative line there…

“Oh yes. And I’m also sure it was a mistake, me not working. I loved working.”

Linda sipped her coffee. She wondered. She’d tried to get her mother to re-enter the workforce when Jeff went to college, but Grace said the job had to be local, and part-time, and interesting, and permit her to travel with Owen, and so on to an impossible list of requirements for an idealized position.

But Linda wasn’t sure of much any more. Except she was certain she liked the opera the night before. Certain she found Vern nice and interesting but not at all sexy. Pretty sure there wasn’t any spark for him, either. Growing confident that Mark really had turned a corner and now, to add to all other good things, was discovering math. And Linda sure was surprised, even tickled and amazed, to learn that her new friend was also her son’s mentor. They would have put it together when Vern arrived, except that Mark had gone to his friend Tom’s house overnight (unfortunately, matches were involved in their adolescent evening). It wasn’t until they were discussing Vern’s interests over dinner that she learned he volunteered as a summer math teacher, and asked his last name forgoodnessakes, and they clinked their wine glasses together to the coincidence that his full appellation was Louis Vernon Chapelle.

She liked the opera so much that she purchased Vern’s second ticket for the entire summer season. Until the geese flew away she’d be watching those works. She’d need the money; she’d better not lose a client. Linda sat back in her chair and at that moment “It’s summertime, dammit” played like a banner in her mind. “It’s time for fun,” she thought-declared. She asked her mother if she wanted to go for a walk, but Grace said no. So Linda went out alone, and happily rode her bike around the lake.

(7)

Grace and Owen didn’t sleep well. Usually it was just one of them moving around all night, disturbing the other with bed impressions and bathroom noises, but Owen went to the toilet half a dozen times and Grace woke at 3 worrying too much to return to sleep.

She fretted about Jenny’s rash. About Jeff’s and Jenny’s weight, and Jeff’s blood pressure. Linda’s disinterest in dating. Linda’s disinterest in hair color. The challenge of Mark. She regretted that Jeff would never be a father. Finally she fell back on what she did best: plan. She voiced a conclusion at 5:05.

“Let’s leave.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s get out of here today. You saw the weather report last night. They’re not expecting any sun for a week. This is depressing. And I miss Linda and Mark. Let’s visit them. We’ve got so many miles we can even go business class.”

“But we haven’t seen the Museum of Modern Art. And what about the baseball game?”

“C’mon, Owen. You know we won’t be happy here. Let’s go see the kids.” One of the strongest agreements in their marriage was about always vacationing together. Grace taught both children the importance of that, and sleeping in the same bed, which is why she found it surprising that Jeff and Jenny sometimes went their separate visiting ways, and often, because of the heat or his snoring, slept in different rooms. Kids don’t listen. She taught Linda about the importance of finding a mate who loves you just a little bit more than you love him, but that advice seemed to be ignored as well.

Owen’s face got that sappy romantic look that Grace found unappealing. But he said “Maybe I can take Mark to a game,” and she knew he was on board with the new plan. She picked up the phone and started making arrangements.

They managed to get a 1 o’clock flight to Denver. The sun broke through the clouds and the forecast at 10 that morning, and the city opened up from gray and white to blue and gold. Both Grace and Owen felt a little wistful in the shuttle to the airport, blinking behind their sunglasses at the perfect June light.

(8)

Linda had an arrangement. She refused to call it a date. She’d be accompanying Vern, the new member of the book group, to the Denver opera on Saturday night. Her comments about Bel Canto had been well received the night before, but what he had to say was more interesting. It turned out that Vern-the-plumber not only had an advanced degree in literature; he was an opera buff, and his notes were well-organized. The whole group got opera information which enhanced their understanding of the book.

Vern had season opera tickets and no partner. Linda was sure there was a story in that. He said he always either found a friend, or sold the other ticket, or donated it back to the opera company to resell. Linda had never seen an opera and Vern offered her the other ticket. She probably should have just paid him for it, but she said she’d buy them dinner and now they were making a long evening of it.

It wasn’t a date. Not only was Linda not looking, but Vern appeared maybe gay and at least unattractive. He was tall enough but bony thin, and the truth was that Linda liked bulk. He was extremely fastidious and appeared repressed. He sat with his long legs crossed at the knee and his arms folded over his narrow chest. His laugh and his sneeze were inhibited. His eye contact was rarely direct and never flirtatious.

But he was interesting. Very well educated. And he appeared to be the most considerate man she’d ever met. She was thinking about this opera deal more than she wanted to. She was distracted from a pile of work she really needed to do.

She heard Mark enter the house. She glanced at the time display on her computer screen and couldn’t believe the morning was already gone. She’d better prepare Mark for the imminent arrival of her parents.

“So how was it today?” she asked about his summer school class before she even entered the kitchen. She was as often surprised when she saw him; he’d grown about six inches in the last year and looked enough like Jeff to be his son instead of his nephew.

“Fantastic.”

“Again? This is quite the teacher.”

“Mom, I don’t know if he’ll ever stop. He’s got me thinking about math in a completely different way. I mean, it just occurred to me today that if I want and I work at it, I can actually invent some math myself.”

“Really?” Linda was going to start making lunch but she sat down with interest.

“Yeah. Mr. Chapelle got us talking today about arithmetic. It didn’t take much for us to see that adding is just a trick to count fast, and multiplying is a trick to add fast. It turns out that when you change stuff to exponents, you multiply by adding, which is another trick to speed up calculations. See? That’s what math is: tricks to go faster. You build the latest trick on the one before, like video games and computer programs.”

“Wow. So what I’m hearing is that you understand the organics of math. The way it’s really organized.”

Mark gave her a sweet look. “Exactly. So then we were talking and Mr. Chapelle drew a blob thing and asked us how we’d compute its area. It wasn’t a polygon or a circle or even an oval, so I thought about it and finally I said that if we put a grid over it, with really small squares, and then we added up the areas of all the squares that roughly matched the shape, then we’d have at least a close approximation of it. And Mr. Chapelle said I’d just described calculus! Isn’t that awesome?”

“It’s great. And I am so proud of you! That was really bright reasoning.”

“Thanks. Mr. Chapelle says next week we’re going to talk about the guts of computers. We’re going to speak binary. And learn something called hexadecimal…”

“I want to meet this Mr. Chapelle.”

“He said something about a party at the end of class.”

“Good. Meanwhile, I have news for today. Grandma and Grandpa are on the way to visit.”

(5)

Linda clicked the “send” on the e-mail to her brother as Mark came in through the kitchen door. She heard “I’m home!” while she twisted to a stand, and she strode with rare eagerness to hear how school had been. The day before, Day 1 as she couldn’t help thinking of it, Mark had torn into the house aglow with enthusiasm for the class and admiration for the teacher. It had been Mr. Chapelle this and Mr. Chapelle that all evening.

The class was taught by a volunteer listed as L.V. Chapelle. The man, according to Mark’s report, was tall and very thin, with salt & pepper hair, and glasses. Apparently the guy marched into the class first day and announced he was a gambler. That got the little delinquents’ attention. Mr. Chapelle said he put himself through college playing bridge for money and hearts for tips. He told the kids that by the end of their summer term they’d be able to hold their own with the best in the casinos. It was quite a motivating little speech.

Linda’s boy dove into probability and statistics homework that night. She never would have believed it if she hadn’t seen it.

“S’up, son?” she greeted Mark playfully.

“Dig it, Mom. I understand pi.”

“Pie?”

“Stop it,” he said. “You know what I mean. Earth-to-Mom. Math class. Pi.”

“I’m sorry.” Linda lifted the fruit bowl. “Tell me.”

“It’s not a number. It’s a relationship.” Mark swung around in his seat. His brown hair gleamed in the afternoon light. “Lend me your ring, and give me some thread and a scissors.”

Linda put the fruit on the table, brought the thread and scissors, sat, and pulled off her silver ring. “Here.”

Mark measured around the ring with the thread, trimmed it, and set it down on the table. “That’s the perimeter, or circumference, of the circle that is your ring.”

Then he measured across the ring, cut thread to size, and set it below the longer thread, with, “And that is the diameter. Now. Here’s the deal. No matter what the size of the circle, if you measure the circumference and the diameter, and divide the one by the other, you always, always, get this number which we call pi. It’s not a number. It’s what you do to a square to torque it into a circle!

“Isn’t that cool?”

Linda said, “Yeah,” and she meant it about Mark more than about pi. They grinned at one another and then she returned to her work. In addition to the job items, she had to finish Bel Canto for her reading group. A new guy, a lanky bookish fastidious perhaps-gay person, had joined last month, and he wasn’t stupid. He earned his living as a plumber but he’d had impressive things to say without even reading the last book. If she was going to speak, and the meetings bored her when she didn’t, then she’d better read and think.

(6)

Usually Jenny and Jeff didn’t discuss Jeff’s parents. They each had their own issues with Grace and Owen and most of the time Jeff saw them and argued with them or didn’t, and Jenny just avoided the get-togethers. Living in Atlanta she couldn’t duck out of everything – in fact she saw them far more often then Linda did – and Jenny had actually been known to bring a jar of her favorite vodka along in a paper bag, to anesthetize herself as needed when forced to interact with her affectionate (intrusive) in-laws. No, normally the subject of Grace and Owen just didn’t come up between Jeff and Jenny, and they would have been involved in the next step of their current home remodel, but Linda’s e-mail had them talking, and Jenny wasn’t even dismayed when she answered the phone and heard her mother-in-law’s authoritative voice.

“I have two things to say.”

“Hi Grace.”

“Hi. I just called to tell you: don’t give the plumbers a deposit of more than 10%…”

“Grace…”

“And when they’re done, pay the balance by credit card.”

“Wait.” Jenny positioned herself in front of the air conditioner vent and tried to get a breeze up her peasant blouse. “Slow down. Why only give a 10% deposit?”

“That’s all you’re legally required to give.”

“Legal schmegal.” Jenny scratched under her breasts and signaled Jeff to take the phone, but he was looking at the paper in his lap. “They asked for one third and we thought that was reasonable. The water heater alone is more than 10% of the total. Anyway, your call’s a day late; you know they started yesterday.”

“Well, then, remember to use a card for the balance. Instead of a check.”

“Grace, you can only be giving me this advice by assuming something’s going to go wrong with the job.”

“Well you have more leverage this way.”

“We don’t need leverage. You know Jeff. He’s already friends with the guy. And the plumbing company is local and has been around forever. If there is a screw-up we won’t need to use money for leverage.”

“You can never tell. Better safe than sorry. Anyway, I’ve had this on my mind all afternoon and I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t call and tell you.”

“Thanks. Do you want to talk to Jeff?” and Jenny was finally able to hand the phone to her husband. She walked back to the air conditioning vent and tried to cool down. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror above the bar, and fluffed her short hair with dissatisfaction. She needed fresh highlights. The gray was really dulling her old blonde.

Jeff sighed when he got off the phone. “Maybe Linda’s right,” he said. “She’s got this theory of intelligence equilibrium. She says that since Dad retired and he and Mom started spending all their time together, they’ve slowly approached equivalent intelligence. Mom has gotten more liberal and well-read while he’s dumbed down behind the shopping cart.” Jeff clasped his fingers behind his neck and stretched his elbows out.

“Or maybe that’s just Linda getting intellectual on us again,” Jenny replied. Jeff looked pudgier to her. She wished he had better forearms. “You’d better answer her e-mail.” She turned on the TV.

(3)

“Is it still hot?” Jenny’s tone was hopeless as she pushed her cheek into her pillow. She hated the heat. She was born and raised in Snohomish, near Seattle, Washington, and her decade in Atlanta had not accustomed her to the weather.

The far edge of their king-size bed dipped and rose as Jeff stood. “It feels the same as yesterday. Maybe you should get out on my side of the bed. What’s bugging you?”

“It’s summertime, dammit. I can’t stand this climate. It makes me so uncomfortable I don’t want to move. And you know my rash is back.”

“But what can we do about it? We can’t change the weather. We can’t relocate.”

“Oh, never mind. Just leave me alone. Just leave.” She turned over onto her other shoulder. Her sister-in-law had sent them gel-filled inserts for their pillows, from Herrington catalog or some such, that rendered them forever cool. That made bed one of the best places for Jenny. Bed or the bathtub. She wished they had a pool. She wasn’t about to use a public one, but if they had a backyard pool, private and not overheated or overchlorinated…there would be a way to stretch out and be comfortable…that would be an agreeable exercise…

Irked into wakefulness, Jenny got out of bed. She probably should have waited till Jeff was finished in the bathroom; he was a relatively tidy man, but he was out of shape and at least 50 pounds overweight and now that they were 45, he wasn’t a delight to behold. She wasn’t attracted to him. It didn’t bother her that they never had sex any more.

Not that she wanted sex with anyone. She had at least as many pounds to lose as Jeff did, but Jenny was barely five feet tall. Her hands and feet were tiny. All the weight had to go somewhere, and it selected the classic boobs-belly-butt. Each of Jenny’s tits was twice the size of her head. Her lower torso was a sausage in her wraparound robe. She suffered in the heat. And she tended to at least a rash (sometimes a fungus) below her breasts and in the perpetual belly folds. The final curse was her allergy to talc. She knew her body was ugly. She felt miserable.

(4)

“Nine dollars for this? Ridiculous!”

“I think it’s delicious.”

“Oh it’s tasty, but I’m sure it’s just blended peas and cream. It’s no big deal.” Grace dipped her spoon into the bright green liquid and tasted again. “I’m sorry. I just don’t get it.”

Owen’s hand quivered a little as he spooned through sorrel leaves to the lobster garnish. They were having dinner at Rubicon restaurant, recommended by Linda and the San Francisco Chronicle. It was a bit out of their way, near a corner in the financial district, but the room was pretty. Grace thought the sign in the window boded no good. Apparently, the place had always been open for lunch weekdays and dinner daily, but had recently changed to mostly dinner. Lunch was available on Wednesdays only. Since it wasn’t on any tourist path or near a hotel, and it wasn’t anywhere near full right then, Grace said she wouldn’t be surprised to learn soon that it had closed. Owen couldn’t disagree.

She ordered veal scallopini for her entree and he ordered salmon. The reduced menu only offered those two items and a pasta. Owen had sworn off meat when his grandson Mark did, two years ago. And he avoided the pasta because he was concerned about his shape. He hadn’t gained any weight but mass was shifting; it seemed as his butt slid down his waist moved up. So he had the salmon. Which was too bad, because it was mediocre and the veal was superb, but Owen didn’t complain, because he didn’t want to inflame Grace.

She was already off on one of her rocket comparisons. No one was quicker than Grace to talk about better meals she has had while ignoring the benefits of the present one. Even while she continued about the item prices, she kept insisting that at least three of their local restaurants were equivalent or superior to Rubicon. Finally Owen told her to shut up.

Then Grace grew girlish and petulant. Owen responded as much out of long habit as anything else; he reassured and comforted and flattered her, and put up with her reminding him how much she’d missed by not going back to work after Linda and Jeff went to school, and how hard she had worked because he wouldn’t even agree to send them to summer camp.

She looked better than usual. Linda called her mother the queen of neutral, because Grace always wore beige, ecru, cream or tan, but for their dinner at Rubicon Grace put on a turquoise linen tunic. The color made her white hair shine and gave a glint to her pale skin. Owen didn’t look as good. His complexion was blotchy with long-term sun damage and there were marks on his forearms where cancer cells had been excised. His skin had a shiny cracked pallor resembling dead flesh. Linda often lectured them about his skin care, but she never could talk Owen into cooler shower water, and she couldn’t find a lotion he would use. She even tried to get Grace to help, and she yelled with surprise when her mother refused, categorically, to massage anything into her father’s flesh. But Grace and Owen were finally old enough that they weren’t scared by their kids’ disapproval.

(1)

Grace’s arms and legs were stippled with goose bumps. This was particularly annoying because she hated the sight of her bare flesh, and she would have been in all ways more comfortable if she were covered.

“It’s summertime, dammit,” she griped.

“Well honey, we knew we should have taken our jackets,” Owen stated as he raised his left arm around her shoulder. “This is San Francisco in June; we were warned.”

It was true. Their daughter told them. Linda lived in Littleton, Colorado now but she used to live in the Bay Area; she knew like a local that only a tourist went without warm layers in June.

But Grace had been impatient and Owen hadn’t wanted an argument. She saw the sun out the window and didn’t want to be encumbered. Grace was forever in a hurry to get on to the next thing. Back when they were young or even middle-aged, it was always Owen who found fault and started their little fights, but somehow over the last 15 years, especially in the five since his T.I.A., the balance had shifted. Now it was always Grace sniping, fidgeting, picking.

A chill gust caught at them as they turned a corner. “Let’s take a break,” Owen said. They were in North Beach and the terrain had become hilly. Grace’s emphysema was in the early stage but she really couldn’t climb any more. Cafes and bistros seemed more prevalent than churches around them, so they entered a well-lit corner place.

No sooner did their drinks come – double cappuccinos in their attempt to replicate the café cremes of Paris – than Grace started in about leaving. “Let’s get out of here,” she blurted, gulped coffee, and added, “I don’t like the look of this place.”

But Owen needed more time. He liked his coffee cooler; he hated to fuzz his tongue. There wasn’t anything wrong with the café. Grace always had trouble staying still, and she had unwavering confidence in her own snap judgments. In general Owen appreciated her ability to size up most people on first acquaintance. There had been countless times in his career when she’d steered him away from phonies or users. But she also had a tendency to make decisions about a store’s inventory in the doorway, or to doom a movie during the opening credits – those quirks hadn’t seemed cute to him for at least 54 years.

Grace looked at him with dismay. There was no doubt that she loved her husband, and she knew she’d be there for him till the end, but he wasn’t the man she’d married. He wasn’t even the guy she raised the kids with or, and she almost blushed to think the word her daughter had inured her to, the one she used to fuck. Not that she missed that – nooooo – but it was one of life’s little surprises that they just stopped getting around to doing it, apparently, some 10 years ago.

“C’mon, Owen,” she wheedled. “Your coffee’s cool enough now. Let’s find an Internet café and e-mail the kids.”

(2)

“It’s summertime, dammit.”

“Language, Mark,” admonished Linda, as she carried the orange juice to the table. “And attitude. I’ve told you before: save the swear words for when you really need them. And it’s nobody’s fault but your own that you have to go to summer school. You’re no dummy.”

Mark poured corn flakes into his cereal bowl and jiggled his left leg. What Linda could see of his face looked okay. He may even have been smiling. He watched her fill his juice glass and he said, “All right, Mom. I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

He mimicked a manacled prisoner marching to his doom. Linda had to laugh. All in all she found Mark more entertaining as he got older. He was 14 now, and often told her jokes she’d never heard. He was a pleasure compared to his old self, before he evolved as he said (at 12), back when he was fat and unhappy and abused by his dad. But once she’d seen the hitting and stopped it, and after by some sort of luck or blessing Mark had gotten a glimpse of what it could be like to like himself, then he began trying, and got morals, and stopped getting suspended, and also stopped eating junk first and then meat too, and blossomed into this amazing kind funny attractive person, who sat at her kitchen table right now, spooning milky cereal into his mouth and swinging one foot. His last suspension was for bringing weapons to school (that was the box the vice-principal checked to categorize the kitchen matches Mark said he’d found on the playing field); she now remembered the event as sweet.

He’d turned into a class clown, which was good for his social life but not for his grades. His math in particular, that most progressive of disciplines, was in serious trouble; if he didn’t get it soon he’d surely be left behind, and find math insufferable, and therefore not even try to learn it, and so cycle like a silly girl into a downward disesteem. His school required him to take a math class this summer.

“It’s only for a couple of hours, honey,” Linda said as he raised the bowl and drank the sugary milk, “and only for a few weeks.”

“Six.”

“There’s still more than half of every day, and most of the summer clear.”

“Okay.” He gulped some of his juice, grimaced at the taste after the sweet milk, and stood to go. Linda just managed to hug him before he left.

She cleared the table, stretched her lower back, and went to her study. She checked her e-mail before starting to work, and there was a note from her traveling parents.

From: growen@aol.com
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 19:34:50 EDT
Subject: Greetings from SF
To: linda960@mindspring.com
X-Mailer: 8.0 for Windows sub 6011
X-SC-SPAMScan-score: ss

Hi Sweetheart:
We’re freezing here in Frisco. Locals tell us we should have switched our itinerary around and come here in Sept. Guess we’ll have to buy clothes! We hear Jenny’s rash is flaring up again; please check up on her? We’ll call soon.
Love, Mom and Dad

Typical. Linda recognized her mother’s patter at the keyboard. She and her sister-in-law were no longer tight friends, and Colorado wasn’t really any closer to Atlanta than California, electronically or telephonically speaking. Nothing to be gained by checking up on Jenny’s rash. Except not displeasing Grace. Linda would rather ride her bike to the lake to see the newly-arrived geese. But she tabled both activities for the morning and tackled her own work instead. These days, she needed to keep her clients happy if she wanted to keep her clients.