The Recycled Citizen Read Online Free PDF

was the right thing to do in the circumstances.”
    “What circumstances?”
    “She saw something in the teacup, of course.”
    “Sarah!”
    “Darling, there’s no earthly point in your asking me questions if you don’t want to hear my answers. Surely you can’t think Theonia was a mere charlatan throughout her professional life?”
    Max’s lips twitched.
    “All right, I suppose there were times when she had to stretch a bit. With some customers it’s like trying to see through mud, she told me. But you have to tell them something because they’ve paid their three dollars, so you do the best you can. With others you begin picking things up as soon as they sit down. When that happens, you’re infallibly right.”
    “Infallibly, eh?”
    “That’s what she said,” Sarah insisted, “and Theonia doesn’t lie. Not to me, at any rate.”
    “She did once,” Max reminded her.
    “Only because she thought she had to. She never has since.”
    “You’re sure of that?”
    “Believe me, I’d know. Wait thirty-seven days and I’ll prove it.”
    “Oh yeah?” said Max. “What’s her prognosis?”
    “A boy.”
    “And what if our son turns out to be a daughter?”
    “Then I’ll never trust another tea leaf and your mother won’t be cross with me. You know how Mother Bittersohn’s been saying she already has a grandson and now she wants a girl. She’ll think I had a grandson just to spite her.”
    Actually Sarah was on pretty good terms with her mother-in-law these days. Last Christmas she’d accidentally filled Mrs. Bittersohn’s long felt but never expressed yearning for a genuine handmade tea cozy like Agatha Christie’s. Even so, Max’s mother felt the strain of having a swarm of WASPs in the mishpocheh and couldn’t help showing how much she’d have preferred having her only son married to a nice Jewish girl.
    They’d work it out. Sarah wasn’t going to worry. She was excited about her baby, she felt marvelous, and she was enjoying the walk. The Senior Citizens’ Recycling Center being situated over toward North Station, she and Max had decided to walk along the Esplanade as far as it would take them. With the wind whipping off the Charles River, she was glad she’d put on the white beret that went with her outfit.
    “It will be nice when I can button this jacket again,” she remarked. “I do love it so.”
    “Maybe I’d have been smarter to buy you a cape,” Max answered. “That woman up ahead of us has one.”
    “The brown thing that looks like a horse blanket? Ugh, I wouldn’t—good heavens, I know that poncho! Speak of the devil and she appears. Max, it’s got to be Tigger. Slow down, for goodness’ sake. We don’t want to catch up with her.”
    They had no trouble avoiding Tigger; she was making good time. When they got up to where the shops were, they saw her cross the road, flap into a coffee shop and sit down with her back to the window.
    This was only one of several eating places in the area. Sarah wondered why Osmond Loveday still bothered to walk all the way back to Beacon Hill for his breakfast. Because he always had, she supposed, or because this neighborhood was too grubby to suit him. She’d never known Mr. Loveday well, but he’d always impressed her as being a fussbudget.
    It was strange that a man who balked at rubbing elbows with the hoi polloi had worked all his life for charitable organizations. But then he hadn’t been working for charity, he’d been working for the Kellings. Perhaps that had made the difference.

Chapter
 4
    A NYWAY, HERE THEY WERE and there he was, off in a cubicle by himself. They could see him through the big front window. This must have been some kind of store once. Now Mary’s taste and Dolph’s checkbook had turned a drab, bare space into an inviting place for their elderly members to meet, eat and rest from their labors.
    Colored tiles brightened the floor. A good many armchairs, covered in hues of blue, green, and orange, were