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discreetly over his nose and mouth should he need to protect himself from coughing passengers on the bus.
    Martha hands him his coat and kisses his cheek. “Thanks for the help.”
    “Glad to do it.” Jesse puts on his hat and pulls down the earflaps, just like a six-year-old might.
    Martha hopes that if he does muster the courage to see Andrea tonight, he’ll take off the hat.
    Once Jesse leaves, Martha opens the bathroom door and her orange tabby, Hannibal, shoots out and begins to circle her ankles, madly rubbing and purring and mewing, simultaneously demanding to be fed and petted. The cat might be one of Jesse’s few justifiable fears. Hannibal ambushes the ankles of anyone other than Martha who enters the Bordello.
    “Is it any wonder no man will spend the night with me with you here?” she asks Hannibal, as she pours kibbles into his bowl. Martha studies her brother’s handiwork and very gingerly places
The Joy of Cooking
on the slanted shelf.

CHAPTER 3

    “Men lose more conquests by their own awkwardness than by any virtue in the woman.”
    Ninon de Lenclos
    MATCHES, COMPASS, CANDLES, wool socks, red wine, snow boots, bird
book.
As Lucy makes a mental list of what she and Adam will need for their weekend in the woods, her brow furrows.
Call
Hertz. Get map of Ulster County. Bake cookies. Bring corkscrew.
Unable to keep track of it all, she grabs a legal pad and scribbles down her questions:
Should we bring water? Wood? Supplies for outhouse?
Kerosene for lamps? First-aid kit?
Her stress level grows proportionally to the list and before she realizes what she’s doing, her fingers are tapping Cooper’s number onto the phone pad. His answering machine picks up.
    “Cooper? Are you there? It’s me.” She pauses for a moment, stepping over a pile of supplies for the trip: hiking boots, strike-anywhere matches, long underwear. “Okay. I guess you’re not in. Call me back. Today, if possible. We’re going upstate this weekend to a friend’s farmhouse that has no running water, no electricity, only a woodstove—”
    “Hey, Lucy-goose,” Cooper says, slightly out of breath when he finally picks up. “I was out back working on my truck. Now, what’s got your feathers in a ruffle?”
    All at once her feathers settle and she feels silly for being nervous in the first place. “Hey, Coop,” she says. “How’s everything down there?”
    “Everything’s grand, sweetheart.”
    “Why’s it always so grand with you, anyway?”
    “Visit someday and find out.”
    It’s a running joke between them: In the twelve years since they’ve known each other, Lucy’s never been to Tuckington Farm.
    “Yeah, I know. I’d be a sweeter, happier person if I woke up to cows mooing instead of horns honking,” Lucy says. “But I think you grossly underestimate the competitive edge that crankiness gives a city girl.”
    “Perhaps I do,” he says. “Maybe I should come up and suss out the situation in person.”
    “Oh, why don’t you, Cooper? Your annual visit is long overdue.”
    “You’re right about that. And I could sure use a break about now.”
    “Mi casa es su casa,”
Lucy says.
    “Well, maybe I’ll look into flights later in the week. But first things first. How can I help with this
terrifying
trip into the savage wilderness of upstate New York?”
    Lucy ignores his teasing and starts right in with her questions: “There’s some kind of a siphon system that transports water from the well to the house through hoses. Have you ever used one?”
    “Sure. They’re temperamental,” Cooper says, all business now. “You might want to bring a few gallons of water with you, especially if you plan to arrive at night and it’s cold. You don’t want to mess with frozen hoses.”
    She adds
water
to her list. “What about firewood? Should we buy some?”
    “I guarantee your friends have a well-stocked woodpile,” he says, and reassures her that small houses are easy to heat.
    “But what if the logs are