NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Daisy parks her shiny new car a few spaces away from where I am standing outside, Curd and Grape.
“Hi, Daisy!”
She turns, looking around after closing the door.
“Over here!”
Daisy strides over with a light cotton scarf, trailing yellow.
“Fred, how do you like it?”
She joins me in the shade of the Hadron Shopping Center’s covered walkway.
“That scarf is as long as a wait in this humid heat!”
“Yeah, I got it to cover my head, but it is so light it flies like a flag.”
“I haven’t seen you in your bowler for a while.”
“Yeah, I gave it up for this, to celebrate.”
She gives her scarf a flourish and I notice a blue stripe going the length of one side.
“Is it an important birthday?”
“No, I sold the house.”
“You mean you are moving out of Fauxmont?”
“Well, I did think about it but no, I sold the house on Havisham Place.”
“Must have fetched a few bucks.”
“After giving Cam a share, lawyer’s fees, and the realtor, I had enough to fix up the car and my home in Fauxmont and get out of debt.”
“Oh, I see now, that’s your old car!”
“Twenty-three years old and looking youthful!”
“Almost adolescent!”
“Yeah, Cam said I could have bought a used Tesla for the cost of renovation and the paint job.”
“I can imagine, getting parts must have been a problem!”
“It was but I am not into EVs.”
“Why not? No exhaust, no hydrocarbons.”
“Right but think about mining all the rare earths that go into them.”
“Yes, we don’t hear so much about that.”
“Now there’s problems with China, where we get all that stuff.”
“It’s a scramble alright and our grid needs some work too.”
“Right, and we are more dependent on it all the time.”
“We shall have to get generators.”
“And ah, you know, the guy who started Tesla. He behaves like a jerk!”
She gathers her scarf and ties it over her hair leaving plenty to spread across her chest.
“The Ukrainian flag becomes you.”
“Thanks, Fred, my gesture of support.”
A young man with a moustache and shaven head comes out of, Curd and Grape. Followed by a woman in a purple tank top.
“Oh, Boyd!”
He is talking to the woman behind him.
“Who’s he with, Fred?”
“That is Maynard Keyes and Lucinda Sorrell.”
“Wow, no bra. She would be fun to draw! and look at that color!”
“Have you got a sketchbook?”
“No, too bad. That fabric is silky. See how it hides and reveals her contours as she moves!”
Boyd turns toward us and walking over, shouts out to Daisy.
“Hey, woman! Painter lady!”
“Boyd! What have you done to your hair?”
“Air conditioning, babe.”
He embraces her.
“How are you doing Daisy? This is Maynard and Lucinda.”
“Hi, Daisy, Lucy Sorrell.”
Maynard introduces himself. He carries a well-filled shopping bag. Switches hands and bends slightly to greet us from his greater height.
“Hi Fred, are you going to stock up?”
“No, I am on the way to Chez Roget for coffee.”
Lucy nudges Boyd who has just dropped a cookie wrapper.
“How about we all go for coffee, Fred?”
Boyd doesn’t pick up his litter but takes Daisy’s hand instead.
Maynard is looking carefully at Chez Roget
“Coffee with a little something in it perhaps?”
Lucy pushes her thick red hair back from her neck.
“I don’t think they do alcohol.”
Maynard holds out a bottle of wine from his bag.
“Why don’t we go over and sit by the river?”
“It’s kind of hot.”
“It will be fine in the shade, Boyd, with a breeze off the water.”
Lucy starts toward the parking lot.
“Come on Boyd!”
He looks at Daisy.
“Okay?”
“Sure, you okay Fred?”
I follow Lucy into the heat of the Hadron parking lot, looking for Maynard’s big pink station wagon.
Daisy admires its low streamlined fins.
“Maynard, I have a 2000 Ford Taurus Aero Station Wagon.”
Maynard looks back as he puts his key in the driver’s side door handle.
“A shapely tellurian species of Ford isn’t it? Emulating the downs!”
“I don’t know if it is a’ Telereen’ or not.”
Maynard smiles his broad best warmth.
“That’s, tel-lurian, Daisy, meaning of this earth.”
“Oh sure, it is definitely terrestrial, like your Buick but younger.”
We all get into the pink behemoth. Boyd leads Daisy around the hood to get into the front seat next to Maynard. Lucy gets in behind next to me.
Lucy grabbs Maynard’s shoulder to get his attention.
“Turn up the AC, sweety!”
Maynard fastens his seatbelt and turns up the fan.
“Where’s your seatbelt, Boyd?”
“There’s only two up here and I am in the middle.”
He snuggles up to Maynard who puts his hand down and squeezes Boyd’s thigh and Boyd does the same to Daisy.
She leans away from him.
“Hands off Mr.!”
“Sorry babe.”
“Boyd, I am not your babe, okay? That ended quite a while ago.”
“Well, I was so glad to see you, you know.”
“Well, I am glad to see you but none of this gropey stuff, okay?”
“Okay, Okay.”
Boyd rests his head against Maynard’s arm.
We speed along the Parkway with the AC blowing through Daisy’s scarf.
Lucy slides down in her seat and pushes her hair back with both hands as if to gather it but lets it fall again against the back of the seat. The back of her neck against the cool upholstery.
“Do you live over here in ‘The Dominion’, Fred?”
“I do, in Fauxmont, just up the road.”
“We live in DC.”
“What brought you over here?”
“There was talk of going to Mt Vernon for a picnic.”
“Okay, so where do you live in the ‘Distract of Carumba’.”
“A big old place up near the Cathedral.”
Maynard shouts above the engine and the roar of the revved-up blower.
“We all share the Sorrell’s ramshackle mansion.”
“That’s Boyd and Lucy and you?”
“Yeah, and my sisters, Lidia and Ottoline.”
“Sounds like quite a community!”
“Maynard is extended family.”
“What about me, love?”
“Boyd, you are family too, honey.”
Maynard slows down to turn into a small lot.
“The sisters have discarded various husbands and lovers over the years and come back together.”
“We have! After Dad died, we were all there for the funeral and then none of us left.”
Several empty picnic tables are distributed along the riverbank under the weight of the humid air. The brown river spreads into the haze which is cooking off.
Boyd is leaning forward to see out the windshield.
“Let’s take that one under the trees!”
Daisy gets out first and then Maynard while Boyd scoots over to follow Daisy.
Lucy rattles the door handle and runs down the window.
“You want to let us out?”
Maynard laughs and reaches in to unlock her door.
“How did you do that?”
“The button requires a magic touch my dearest.”
“I thought you got this antique fixed up!”
Lucy gets out and the door on my side opens without the magic touch.
“So, did I.”
He slams the door shut.
“So, what’s with the locks?”
“Oh, they are in a world of their own!”
“YOU are in a world of your own!”
Maynard blows her a kiss as he reaches for his bag of bread and wine in the back.
We settle at the shady table under a willow oak. Maynard unpacks three bottles of wine with screw tops and two loaves of bread in bags labeled ‘Baguette’.
Boyd reaches for a wine bottle.
“No, take this one, a philter just for you.”
“I don’t want filtered wine, Maynard!”
He squeezes Daisy with his free arm.
“No dear, think of it as a love potion and leave poor Daisy alone.”
Daisy moves to the other side of the table.
Boyd twists off the cap, gulps, burps, and hands the bottle across to Daisy.
“Here lover, drink some of this red love-stuff.”
“It is called a ‘philter’ Boyd, and I gave it to you!”
“Those baguette things look kind of short!”
Maynard picks them both up.
“Lucy, they are made here, where we have no tradition of crusts.”
Maynard tears the bread into portions and hands them around.
“No glasses, no plates, no napkins, okay?”
Boyd picks up the bottle for another gulp of the ‘philter’.
Lucy opens the cap of some Sauvignon Blanc and takes a swig.
“Here Fred are you into ‘Sauvage’?”
“You mean it’s a savage wine?”
“Try it and tell me.”
“It tastes fresh and dry.”
A humid breeze off the Potomac perturbs Lucy’s hair. She licks her lips holding my wrist and smiles at me through her newly fallen red curtain.
“You should come visit us in DC.”
