The Dogs of Littlefield Read Online Free PDF Page B

embroidered pillows alight with tiny mirrors—along with a glossy jade plant in a red glazed pot.
    Every fall for the past decade the Fischmans had rented their furnished carriage house to a visiting professor at Warren College, a mile to the south. Mulberry-colored and gabled, a smaller version of the Fischmans’ house, the carriage house was separated from the Downings’ driveway by a privet hedge, though a gap in the hedge allowed for foot traffic. The carriage house had once been divided into two home offices—both Fischmans were psychoanalysts—but since their retirement they’d put in a kitchen and an upstairs bedroom. Rental income was nothing to sneeze at, and they liked the idea of having someone to call on in an emergency, especially since Marv’s stroke, which had left him with a palsied hand and slurred speech. Generally their tenants had not mixed much with the neighbors on Rutherford Road. Last year’s tenant was a tall, gaunt man from Brussels with grayish teeth who wore dark suits, even on weekends, and never opened his window blinds; his subject was the dialectic of Counter-Enlightenment. Not exactly a guy to invite over to watch the Super Bowl, Bill had said to Margaret.
    That afternoon she and Julia walked across the driveway with a paper plate of chocolate chip cookies, as they always did when a new person moved into the carriage house. Even the man from Brussels got a plate of cookies. Julia had not wanted to go and had to be persuaded.
    â€œIt’s neighborly,” said Margaret.
    â€œPeople don’t do that stuff anymore.”
    â€œOf course they do.”
    â€œNo,” said Julia. “Only you do.”
    A plump black woman, hardly taller than Julia, met them at the door wearing a green turban, feathery pink mules, and a peach-colored silk robe embroidered with dragons. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. She smiled broadly, revealing large front teeth with a gap between them, and introduced herself in a supple, gravelly voice as Clarice. Then she thanked them for the cookies and said that they’d have to excuse her, as she was just about to have her bath, thanked them again, and shut the door. Margaret and Julia walked back through the hedge.
    â€œWell,” Margaret said as they reached their back steps. “She seems interesting. I feel like I’ve met her before.”
    â€œShe’s black,” noted Julia.
    â€œAfrican-American.”
    But Julia wanted to know what if she wasn’t: what if she wasn’t American or African? What should she be called then?
    Margaret opened the back door to the kitchen. “I suppose you’d say person of color.”
    â€œBut who says that?” Julia loitered in the doorway, voice rising. “Who says, ‘Hey, guess what, today I met a person of color’?”
    â€œLet’s talk about this inside,” said her mother.
    The Downings had since learned that Dr. Clarice Watkins was an associate professor at the University of Chicago. Hedy Fischman wasn’t sure, but she believed Dr. Watkins might be a friend of the Obamas. Dr. Watkins had said she was from Hyde Park—where the Obamas used to live, Hedy knew—and had revealed that her mother lived in Hyde Park, as well. Obama had been mentioned several times in the conversation. Hedy was slightly hard of hearing, a difficulty compounded by her tendency to talk over other people during conversations, so Margaret thought it was possible that Dr. Watkins had said “Mama” at those moments, not Obama. What Hedy knew for certain was that Dr. Watkins was this year’s Talbot Scholar at Warren College, where she was scheduled to deliver a series of lectures on something, and was also conducting some kind of study. Hedy couldn’t remember on what.
    Bill wondered aloud if they might invite Dr. Watkins to dinner one evening. It would be interesting, he said, to meet someone who knew the