The Geographer's Library

The Geographer’ s Library
She looked horrified. “Don’t call yourself that. It’s okay, whatever you
are, just as long as there’s something, you know? I couldn’t imagine anything
worse than not believing in anything. What are you, really?”
“Lutheran, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Jewish. A Dutch-Irish mother
and a Greek-Jewish father. One grandparent in each church, and now they
have twelve grandchildren in none.”
“Well, that’s wonderful. Look at all the choices you have. Which one were
you raised in?”
“It depended on where we were for which holiday, I guess. A long story,” I
said, looking at my watch and gathering up my perpetually meager stock of
courage. “A long and occasionally interesting story, and one best told over
dinner. What do you think?”
“The ace reporter’s treating the struggling music teacher to dinner, right?”
“Wouldn’t dream of anything else. The Longwood Inn?”
“You do have fancy tastes for a small-town scribbler. How about something
a little farther away? I’d rather not worry about colleagues seeing us,
and teachers’-lounge gossip, and so on. Have you been to the Trout?”
“No. Never even heard of it.”
“That’s because it’s in Pelton, about forty-five minutes north of here.
Right on the river and almost in Massachusetts. Do you have a car?”
“I do. When should we go?”
“Tomorrow?” I nodded. “Good,” she said. “I haven’t had Friday-night
plans in weeks. I have some work I need to do at school, unfortunately, so if
you could, why don’t you pick me up around the back of Talcott, right where
the hill begins sloping down from Common to Station? We’ll go from there.
Around seven?”
“Perfect,” I said as she opened the door. I put my hand out. She looked at
it sympathetically, then looked up at me, said, “You sweet man,” laid her
hands on my shoulders, kissed me lightly just below my eye on my cheekbone,
waved, and closed the door behind me.
as i walked around to the front of the house, out of the corner of my
eye I saw something moving quickly on the porch. I turned to look, and a cat
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