Our Souls at Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

boring and tedious except for those stories you learned about people.
    Well, Diane stayed herself anyway, Louis said. Throughout. As I say I can appreciate that now. I didn’t then, at the time. But we didn’t know anything in our twenties when we were first married. It was all just instinct and the patterns we’d grown up with.

15
    On a night in June Louis said, I had an idea today. Do you want to hear it?
    Of course.
    Well, I told you about Dorlan Becker at the bakery who said something about us and I’ve told you about Holly’s old high school friends calling her.
    Yes, and I told you about going to the grocery store with Ruth and what the clerk said. And what Ruth said.
    So here’s my idea. Just to make a virtue out of a necessity. Let’s go downtown in the middle of broad daylight and have lunch at the Holt Café, and walk right down Main Street and take our time and enjoy ourselves.
    When do you want to do it?
    This Saturday noon when they’re the busiest at the café.
    Okay. I’ll be ready.
    I’ll call for you.
    I might even put on something bright and flashy.
    That’s the ticket, Louis said. I might wear a red shirt.
    —
    On Saturday he came to her house a little before noon and she came out in a yellow bare-backed summer dress and he had on a red and green western short-sleeved shirt, and they walked from Cedar over to Main Street and down the sidewalk four blocks and then past the stores on that side of the street, the bank and the shoe store and the jewelry shop and the department store, walking along all the old-fashioned false storefronts. They stood at the corner of Second and Main in the bright noon sun waiting for the light to change and looked straight back at the people they met and greeted them and nodded and she had her arm entwined with his and then they walked across the street to the Holt Café where he opened the door for her and followed her inside. They stood waiting to be seated. People inside looked at them. They knew about half of those sitting in the café, or at least knew who they were.
    The girl came and said, Is it the two of you?
    It is, Louis said. We’d like one of those tables out in the middle.
    They followed her to a table and Louis pulled out the chair for Addie and then sat next to her, not across from her but close beside her. The girl took their order and Louis held Addie’s hand out on the table and looked around the room. The food came and they began to eat.
    Doesn’t seem too revolutionary so far, Louis said.
    No. People are polite enough in public. Nobody wants to make a public fuss. And I think we’re overreacting anyway. People have more on their minds than worrying about us.
    Before they were finished eating, three women stopped by the table individually and said hello and then went on out.
    The last woman said, I’ve been hearing about you two.
    What have you heard? Addie said.
    Oh, how you’re seeing each other. I wish I could do that.
    Why can’t you?
    I don’t know anybody. I’d be too afraid anyway.
    You might surprise yourself.
    Oh, no. I couldn’t do it. Not at my age.
    They ate slowly and then ordered dessert, in no rush at all. Afterward they rose and went out onto Main Street again and now walked back up the opposite sideand past the stores there and the people looking out from inside beyond the open doors, open for any breeze there might be, and went over three blocks to Cedar.
    Addie said, Do you want to come in?
    No. But I’ll be here tonight.

16
    Addie Moore had a grandson named Jamie who was just turning six. In the early summer the trouble between his parents got worse. There were bad arguments in the kitchen and bedroom, accusations and recriminations, her tears and his shouts. They finally separated on a trial basis and she went off to California to stay with a friend, leaving Jamie with his father. He called Addie and told her what happened, that his wife had quit her job as a hairdresser and had gone out to the West Coast.
    What’s