Old Man, Old Woman(Barry) Phyllis Moon was sifting through a stack of messages when both telephone lines lit up simultaneously. “Caring Hearts Home Care, please hold.” The office coordinator put the first caller on pause and attended to the second.

Alex, who had just arrived at work, picked up the flashing line. Eighty-seven-year-old Sarah Cohen from Scenic View Apartments was complaining that her homemaker was late. Alex glanced at the clock on the far wall. “It’s not quite nine o’clock, Mrs. Cohen. Your girl should be there momentarily.”

Hanging up the phone he turned back to Phyllis. The receptionist’s dark skin and short-cropped raven hair framed a pleasant if somewhat unremarkable face. She favored unfashionable, dark-framed glasses and an assortment of infuriatingly drab skirts and blouses. Despite her physical limitations, Phyllis Moon was efficient and dependable. She knew how to comfort a crotchety client addicted to stool softeners or finesse a homemaker into taking on a difficult case, while keeping office politics to a bare minimum.

“My fiancée, Clarice, wants to live together… cohabitate.”

“That’s nice,” Phyllis replied in a low-keyed monotone. “Your accountant is stopping by this morning. The general ledger is locked in the middle cabinet.”

“Clarice and I decided to live together,” Alex repeated.

“Yes, you just told me a moment ago.” Phyllis tilted her slender neck to the side and smiled opaquely. “Congratulations.”

Alex glanced about the office distractedly. “Do you like Clarice?”

Phyllis Moon gawked at him with a quizzical expression. “Your question puts me in an awkward spot.”

A homemaker wearing a green smock came to pick up directions plus pay slips for a new client. “It’s not a trick question,” Alex groused when the homemaker was gone. “Either you like my future wife or not.”

Phyllis removed her dark-frame glasses, sprayed the lenses with a pocket-size atomizer then wiped the surface dry with a tissue. “In less than three months you just went from casual dating to cohabitating then wedding bells.”

Before he could respond, a dark blue Toyota sedan with a moon roof pulled up in front of the building, and, what was turning out to be a reasonably pleasant day got a whole lot worse. “Oh, God!” Alex muttered. “That’s Jessica Stern from the Department of Health.”

*****

Every year without notice the Brandenburg Department of Health bushwhacked the home care agencies with unscheduled visits. They came ostensibly to insure that paperwork was in order and employee medical records up to date.

That was the stated purpose for the inspections. But Jessica Stern always brought a secondary agenda. The dour woman would dig and dig and dig and dig, until she unearthed some petty indiscretion or infinitesimal sin of omission. Then, like a Roman gladiator, Jessica Stern would launch a full frontal attack.

Alex set the inspector up in a small vestibule off the entryway. Five minutes into her visit Jessica flagged him down. “The elder abuse hotline number on the Patient Bill of Rights form is incorrect,” she announced in a pinched tone. The woman was tall, over six feet, with a wide jaw and meticulously combed auburn hair. “The information,” she repeated “is outdated.”

“We were never notified of the changed,” he replied weakly.

“We contacted every provider.” Jessica gave him a withering look that precluded any further discussion of the matter. “When did you print these forms?”

“Just last week. We ordered fifteen hundred.”

“They’ll all need to be destroyed and every client issued a new one with the correct telephone number,” she added for good measure. “Where’s your Emergency Disaster Control Plan?”

“Disaster Control Plan,” Alex repeated dully.

Three years earlier, following the 911 terrorist attack, the state ordered all health care providers to draw up a written plan detailing how they would continue operations following a national catastrophe such as germ warfare, terrorist attack, nuclear explosion, earthquake, flood, holocaust, God-knows-what. Alex had dutifully churned out ten pages of surrealistic drivel. The original document was buried in his computer hard drive, the printed version filed away somewhere in the back office.

The dystopian directive read like third-rate, pulp fiction. When militant Pakistanis dropped a nuclear bomb on downtown Brandenburg, Alex would of course ignore his own, immediate family and rush back to the site of the demolished home care agency.

To do what?

To insure that Sarah Cohen from Scenic View Apartments got her pussy toe lanced by the podiatrist and then make a side trip to the drug store - if it hadn’t already been reduced to rubble or looted - to purchase an organic laxative for the ninety year-old client with fecal impactions. Brandenburg had just been demolished, annihilated on a scale similar to Hiroshima, but Jessica Stern’s bureaucratic master plan trumped all mundane considerations.

Alex rummaged through every three-ring folder and manual lining the credenza. No luck. He slouched into a chair. A fat bumblebee just outside the window was circling the mouth of an orangey tiger lily. Across the street the driver of a Pepsi Cola van was stacking crates of soda on a hand truck to be wheeled into the grocery market.

“Did you check the blue binder?” Phyllis was leaning against the door jamb.

Alex looked up. “That’s where we store outdated telephone logs.”

“Yes, but you habitually cram all sorts of meaningless junk in there.” She opened the folder and thumbed through the blue binder, section by section. “Yes, here it is… right where you put it three years ago.” She pried the metal rings apart, extricating the report. “I’ll bring it out to Mrs. Stern.” She hurried off.

After Jessica Stern left the building, Alex called the Brandenburg Department of Health. “I’m calling from Caring Hearts Home Care. We need the new Elder Abuse Hotline telephone number.”

“Yes, I have that right here,” the woman on the other end of the line replied. “Eight, four, nine… nine, six, five, three.”

Alex felt like he had been sucker punched in the solar plexus. “No, that’s the number we presently have. It’s been replaced… updated.”

“One minute please.” After a lengthy pause the receptionist returned. “I’m so sorry. The correct number is six, one, five …”

*****

“That went well.” Alex told Phyllis about the comedy of errors with the outdated telephone number. “Jessica Stern is writing us up with multiple deficiencies.”

Phyllis smirked. “It’s sort of like high school, when you get caught bunking class or smoking in the bathroom.”

“A lot more costly,” Alex observed. “Those non-carbonated forms we have to scrap cost over a hundred bucks.” He stepped closer. “What are you doing this weekend?”

“Camping in the White Mountains,” she replied. “Gonna hike the trails and maybe do some fly-fishing.”

“You don’t strike me as the outdoors type.”

There was no immediate reply. “What’s my full name?”

Alex stared at her queerly. “Phyllis… Phyllis Moon.”

“I was born Phyllis Half Moon. After moving east from the reservation in Butte, Montana, I dropped the ‘Half’. I’d like to think that a full-blooded Blackfoot Indian should know a thing or two about communing with Mother Nature.”

*****

“Regarding accounts receivable,” Howie Tittlebaum observed, “company income is way up, but profits are in the toilet.”

Alex was seated behind his desk in the back office. A coffee-colored UPS truck swerved onto the street. That would be the non-surgical glove shipment he ordered the middle of last week - ten cases of latex-free, powdered gloves for the health aides who bathed clients and provided personal care. “I’m projecting a million five this year.”

A small man with pale, flaccid skin and a receding hairline, the accountant laid a spreadsheet on the desk. “Look here.” He stabbed at a double line midway down the page. “Caring Hearts brought in close to four hundred thousand in gross sales through March, but blew three-quarters of the revenue on payroll and operating expenses.”

Alex’s expression darkened. “Our business is labor-intensive. To stay competitive with the nursing homes, we need to offer regular pay raises.” Alex cracked his knuckles and shook his head in disgust. “But then the state nickel-and-dimes us to death. A ton of money flows in every month but flies back out the window in operating expenses.”

“You think you’re in health care?” Howie waved his slender hands in the air, assuming the gently mocking tone of a practical jokester. “Surprise! Surprise! You’re in the garment trade!” He burst out laughing hysterically at his own joke. “The garment industry in New York,” the humor was tempered now with an equal measure of gravitas, “functions on razor-thin profit margins. Smaller shops can’t raise prices, because the jerk down the street might undercut them so the clothiers got no control over their bottom line.”

“Millions of dollars in, millions out,” Alex observed sardonically.

Receivables went chasing expenses like the proverbial carrot on the end of an absurdly long stick. No matter how much money he brought in, no profit remained from one month to the next. In April, Alex borrowed ten thousand dollars to cover payroll and an impending federal tax payment. He couldn’t screw around with the Feds.

“You can cart the goddamn money to the bank in a freakin’ wheelbarrow,” Howie observed, “but if it’s all eaten up in salaries and benefits, there isn’t a plug nickel’s worth of profit at the end of the day.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“You don’t need more money, you need stronger profit,” the accountant replied. “Hit the state up for a rate increase when you renegotiate contracts.” Howie rose and, reaching across the desk, pumped Alex’s hand up and down. “When you own your own company,” he quipped, “everybody thinks you’re rolling in dough.”

Alex gazed distractedly about the room. His eyes came to rest on the new computer and dot matrix printer they used for processing the continuous-feed payroll slips. That purchase alone set him back a good penny. Now he had to fork over another three hundred dollars to the software company that designed the automated accounting program. Every couple of years they introduced an updated program that rendered what Alex was currently using obsolete.

*****

Later that night, Alex called Phyllis at home. “You work for me five goddamn years and only just now get around to telling me about your heritage?”

“How many Native Americans do you rub shoulders with on any given day?” She had never spoken to him in that way and the caustic tone brought him up short.

What did Alex know about the American Indians?

His junior year in high school the history teacher touched briefly on the ugly legacy of Manifest Destiny. In the far west, the Spanish wanted to convert all the natives to their way of life and, on the whole, were surprisingly successful. The English, on the other hand, never tried to make white Anglo-Saxon Protestants out of Indians; instead they saw the red man as part of the wilderness that they aimed to clear away.

“How many tribes make up the Blackfoot Nation?” This time she didn’t wait for a reply. “Four – the North and South Peigans, the Kinai Nation, also known as the Bloods, and the Siksika.”

“I want to go camping with you in the White Mountains."

The remarked was greeted with a whooping belly laugh. “That’s ridiculous! You’re engaged to Clarice.”

“Not so,” he protested. “And, anyway, I just need to get away.”

“A vision quest,” Phyllis snickered tongue in cheek.

“What’s that?”

“A young Indian wanders off into the wilderness alone and fast. After three or four days of mortification of the flesh, the Great Spirit sends a message or maybe nothing at all.”

“Sounds a bit too intense. Can I accompany you to the White Mountain?”

“No,” she hissed. “Absolutely not.”

“For my mental well being, I got to get away.”

Alex watched the second hand on the wall clock tick ten, fifteen, twenty-five seconds. Out in the street, an ambulance sped by red light and siren. “Separate tents,” Phyllis finally broke the impasse. “No funny stuff. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, of course. So what do I need to bring?”

“I’ll do up a list. What about Clarice?”

“I’ll just say I’m away on business.”

“You’ll do no such thing. You can tell her that you’re camping in the White Mountains with friends.”

“What if she demands particulars?”

“That’s none of my business, because I’m driving up alone,” she replied and hung up the phone.

*****

Alex allowed himself one colossal, ignominious blunder per year.

Every three hundred and sixty-five days, give or take a month, he could transgress, do something so utterly regrettable that he cringed with mortal embarrassment. One stupendously stupid blunder per year.

Clarice was physical perfection – the straw-colored hair and velvety skin that blushed pink when she stepped out of a steamy shower. The other night, she wore a strapless, black evening gown with pearl drop earrings to a family gathering, and the odd thought flitted across Alex’s mind that the woman was quite possibly even more beautiful with clothes than in the buff. But outside of maintaining her gorgeous looks, the woman, who pulled up short every time she passed a mirror, cultivated no hobbies or creative pursuits. She was a trophy wife, not a woman to grow old with, and Alex’s agreeing to cohabitate registered a perfect ten on the Richter scale of dopey deeds.

Alex had no intention of ever setting up house with the blonde much less marrying her. He would tell his girlfriend the truth straight out. Clarice would throw a hissy fit, but inside a week, she would dry the crocodile tears and put her luscious flesh back in circulation. More guys would be queuing up to date Clarice than diehard Yankee fans vying for tickets to a World Series game.

So why tell Phyllis they were moving in together? And, worse yet, why did he describe Clarice as his future wife? One lie heaped on another. A fetid pile of deceit! If Alex wasn’t going to marry Clarice, what did he really want? Alex yearned for someone like Phyllis Moon. The near-sighted, rummage-sale fashionista was pleasant, reliable, dependable, durable, forthright, solid, and stolid and on and on and on and ….

She was also spoken for.

Phyllis had a steady boyfriend, Donald. On the few occasions he stopped by the office to take Phyllis out to lunch, the pudgy man with the swarthy, pock-marked face was always polite, with a gently, self-effacing smile, Though she never discussed her personal life, Alex assumed Donald and his office manager were engaged.

*****

The rest of the week flew by. Jessica Stern from the Department of Health mailed a list of infractions which required a written plan of correction within ten days. Thursday evening Clarice called. “I’m three blocks from your apartment.”

Alex immediately hung up and began rehearsing his we-need-to-talk spiel, but when Clarice arrived the issue never came up. “My father had emergency surgery to remove a blood clot in his leg.”

Alex felt a sense of relief. “When was this?”

“Earlier this morning.” I’m flying out tonight to be with my mother… won’t be back from Miami until sometime the middle of next week.”

“Need a lift to Logan?”

“You’re so sweet.” She slipped her arms around his waist and leaned forward, patting him naughtily on the inner thigh. “Want to grab a quickie before I go?”

By the scattered tone and the way her eyes flitted distractedly about the room, Alex understood the offer as more formality than sexual need. “Not necessary.”

She kissed his cheek, wiping the wetness away with the heel of her hand. “Poor boy, you’ll be all alone this weekend.”

Alex felt a queer rush of joy tinged with anticipation. “Howie Tittlebaum stopped by the office Monday.”

“The accountant?”

“He claims I’ve been spending too much time growing revenue when I should be focusing on profit.”

Clarice picked at a cuticle. “What’s the difference?” He explained the comparison Howie had made between home care and the garment industry. “You earn over a million dollars,” she spoke slowly measuring her words, “but are still a pauper?”

“The agency rakes in tons of money,” Alex said, “but after-tax profit is pitifully low.”

She flashed him a sick look. “I’m sure you’ll figure something. I got to get to Logan Airport in less than two hours.”

*****

Friday afternoon Alex told Phyllis about Clarice’s abrupt departure. “Is Donald joining us?”

“Joining me,” Phyllis corrected. “No. Donald has a drinking problem and we’re not dating anymore.”

“For the life of me, I don’t see why we can’t drive up together.”

“Because,” Phyllis’ stony expression never wavered, “to do so would be crass and smarmy.”

“I’m not two-timing Clarice.”

“No,” Phyllis replied evenly, “but you’re not being terribly honest either.”

“Travelling in one car is more economical.”

Phyllis turned away. “Clearly you didn’t hear a solitary thing I said.”

*****

Saturday morning, Alex drove north through Boston, where he caught the Route 93 Interstate to the New Hampshire state line. He continued on through Plymouth and Compton, cruising to the western shore of Lake Winnipesauke. The campground was well over two hours away and the unsavory thought had occurred to Alex even before he left Brandenburg that Phyllis might not show up.

Then what would he do? Check into a motel for the night? That made perfect sense! He had bought a tent, sleeping bag and lengthy list of necessities that Phyllis Moon (or was it Half Moon?) recommended, but would end up spending the night in some dumpy, flea-bitten motel before driving home like a total fool.

At Holderness he entered the southern tip of the White Mountains National Forest and continued on for another thirty miles veering off the interstate onto route 112 heading east to Loon Mountain. At the third set of traffic lights he pulled over at a small coffee shop; Phyllis was waiting near a picnic table sipping a cup of coffee. She was dressed sensibly – a pair of heavy-soled hiking boots, khaki shorts and plaid blouse.

“Is there anything you need?” she asked. He shook his head. “The campground is two miles up on the right. You can follow me.” She climbed into a tan Subaru sedan and edged out into traffic.

*****

“You’ll want to get the gear set up and campsite arranged to your liking.” Phyllis had called ahead earlier in the week to reserved a space near the lake.

Once they lugged their supplies down to the water, the lanky woman started unpacking. Alex wandered down to the lake then doubled back to the registration office where he picked up a few brochures describing local attractions. “Is that a tent or a Mediterranean villa?”

Phyllis, who was pounding a metal stake into the spongy earth, nudged her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and grinned. The elongated tent featured two doors with a massive vestibule plus a six-pocket gear loft. The poles were anodized aluminum with a mesh canopy and overhead vents to eliminate condensation.

“It’s the Big Agnes Emerald Mountain model.” “The design is particularly good,” she added as she pounded away at the last stake, “for weathering high wind situations.” Having finished she ran a hand over the bed of pine needles carpeting the earth. “Where’s your hatchet?”

“I forgot to buy one.”

“Here, use this.” She handed him the one at her feet. “I’m going back to the car to get the rest of my stuff.” It took Phyllis three leisurely trips back and forth to retrieve the rest of her camping gear. She brought a sleeping bag, flashlight with extra batteries, a kerosene lantern, transistor radio and folding chair. The bug spray and plastic cooler she squirreled away under a shaggy hemlock tree. Other items such as the mess kit, plastic cups, pot holders, a slightly scorched aluminum pan and spatula she arranged alongside the Big Agnes.

“What’s the bucket for?” Alex asked.

“Hauling water.” Phyllis wound a plastic alarm clock and set it just inside the front tent flap. “We can cook simple meals over the fire,” she pointed to a blackened cooking pit ringed by large stones, “but there’s a pizza joint and breakfast nook three miles down on the right so, if the weather turns bad, we don’t have to starve.”

She grabbed a short handled spade. “I’m going to dig a shallow hole over behind that stand of birch trees. Do your business in the hole.” Rummaging about in one of her waterproof storage sacks she removed a roll of fluffy toilet paper. “Don’t throw the paper on the ground. Put it here.” She held up a Ziploc storage bag with a plastic clip. “I’ll hang it beside the hole.” She pointed at a scattering of wildflowers sprouting on a rocky granite outcrop. “Be careful not to step on any of those.”

Alex studied a delicate, rather homely looking plant with tiny pastel pink buds. “And why’s that?”

“Silverlings have been disappearing here in the Northeast and some blame recreational hikers.”

When Alex’s tent was erected and sleeping bag unrolled, Phyllis announced that she was going for a walk. “Did you bring extra socks?” Alex shook his head up and down. “How many pair?”

“Three.”

“That’s good, but I’ve got a clothesline and detergent just in case.”

“Was there anything you didn’t bring?” She cracked a tepid smile and headed away from the lake toward the main trail.

*****

The campground was shot through with an endless series of ponds, bogs and rocky hillocks that weaved around the lake. As they came up over a gravelly hill, Phyllis knelt down and fingered a dull pink flower with feathery tendrils bursting from the center. “Blazing star,” she pointed to a charred tree trunk nearby. “They don’t like shade and tend to appear after the land’s been scorched by fire.”

Reaching a clearing where the dense pine trees no longer hemmed them in, the sky was clear with a scattering of cumulus clouds. A brown hawk circled on an updraft, searching for prey. “I climbed that mountain directly ahead last summer.” At the summit, there were balsam fir and black spruce only thigh-high like miniature clumps of bonsai trees.”

As she explained it, at the higher elevations many of the alpine plants were dwarfed to avoid the brutal winds and survive in the nutrient-poor substrate that couldn’t possibly maintain regular forest plants. Even the heartiest shrubs were ground-hugging with thick, leathery leaves that sometimes curled at the margins to help reduce the physical abuse and dehydrating effects of the mountain winds.

“So when exactly,” Alex pressed, “were you planning to tell me about your Indian heritage?”

Phyllis shrugged. Cresting the rise, she started down the far side. “According to Blackfoot oral tradition, once there were only two people in the world, Old Man and Old Woman.”

As Phyllis Half Moon explained it, the Old Man insisted that they should decide how everything worked properly in the new world they were creating, and that he should have first say in everything. Old Woman agreed as long as she could have the final word. Then the Old Man said, “Let the people have eyes and mouths in their faces, but they shall be straight up and down.”

“No,’ said the Old Woman. We will not have them that way. We will have the eyes and the mouth in the faces, as you say, but they shall be set crosswise.”

They passed through a gash in the hillside where granite boulders rose thirty feet high on either side of the cleft. Small wildflowers, mosses and seedlings that Alex hadn’t noticed previously clung to the steep sides of the bald-faced rock—a vegetative world in microcosm. “Is that the only story about the Old Man and Old Woman?”

“Oh, no,” Phyllis laughed. “Here’s another.” “The Old Man said people shall have ten fingers on each hand, but the Old Woman said, ‘Oh, no. That will be too many and they will be in the way. There shall be four fingers and one thumb on each hand.’”

The old man said, ‘we shall beget children. The genitals shall be at our navels.’”

“’No’, said the Old Woman, ‘that will make childbearing too easy and the people will not properly care for their children. The genitals shall be further down.’”

Alex began to chuckle. They had arrived back at the campsite. “That’s enough Indian folklore for the time being.”

*****

“Why did you change your name?” They were down by the pond in the early afternoon. Phyllis was fly-casting, whipping a strand of translucent monofilament line out over the placid water. As she retrieved the feathery lure, she flicked her wrist to simulate a bug flitting about the watery surface.

The woman waded further away from shore until the water crawled up her slender thighs and was nipping at the hem of her shorts. She let out a length of line, slingshotting the fly in a wavy ribbon across the pond. “Being Native American,” she addressed his earlier question, “is a state of mind. I don’t have to wear my Indian heritage like some badge of honor.”

Sitting twenty feet away on a stump Alex, nodded. He had always felt uncomfortable at Fourth of July ceremonies, watching doddering, eighty year-old VFW members with pot bellies, pointy military caps and hip replacements limp past.

“My people lived for centuries in these very same woods before migrating to the northwestern Great Plains where they hunted buffalo and gathered wild plants. The Blackfeet were the strongest military power in the region during the buffalo days. All the neighboring tribes, the Shoshonis, Kutenais and Flatheads, feared them.”

Slogging back to shore she removed the fly, exchanging it for another with a fluffy lemon-colored feather and silver spinner. “Being Indian is a state of grace,” she repeated what she had said a moment earlier altering the last word.

*****

In late afternoon, Phyllis sent Alex to collect kindling and scrounge up thicker deadwood for the campfire. Once the fire was established, she steamed a cup of whole grain rice and sautéed onions and green peppers over the open flame.”

“You even remembered to bring salt,” Alex shook his head, “and sugar for the coffee.” The light was seeping out of the sky leaving the landscape shrouded in dull shadows. “Howie says we’re not doing so hot.” After they had finished the meal, he told Phyllis the accountant’s grim assessment earlier in the week.

She sat on a blanket sipping black coffee from a battered tin cup. “This is what I think.” A light breeze sent a rustling through the trees. Somewhere in the distance a small creek was gurgling a soothing, repetitive melody. “Hold off until September, then slash benefits. Do away with sick days. No more time-and-a-half for evening service, and make the direct-care employees pay fifty-fifty toward their medical coverage.”

Alex mulled the suggestion. “Isn’t that a bit drastic?”

“And what are your alternatives? Howie says we’re no better than the garment industry. Well, the garment industry has been around for a hundred years. We won’t survive much beyond January, from what I can see, unless you do something rash.”

“Homemakers will quit.”

“So you swallow hard and hire replacements at entry-level pay. When the state grants us a rate increase, reward the loyal troops with a decent raise.” Phyllis rose and threw the last few drops of coffee onto the fading embers, which sent up a steamy, aromatic smoke. “Now, I’m going to bed.”

*****

Around three o’clock, Alex had to pee. He had forgotten to bring a flashlight, but the moon was bright, and he relieved himself behind a clump of evergreen bushes with bright red berries that Phyllis identified earlier as a rare mountain variety of wild cranberry that only grew in western Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. Back in the cozy comfort of the sleeping bag, Alex realized that, for the first time in ages, he was sublimely happy.

Earlier while Phyllis was preparing supper, filleting a trout she caught, he said, “Tell me another story about Old Man and Old Woman.”

“Old woman asked, ‘What should we do about life and death? Should the people always live or should they die?’”

They had some difficulty in agreeing on this, but finally Old Man said, that he would throw a buffalo chip into the water, and, if it floated, the people will die for four days and live again. But if it sank, they would die forever. So he threw it in and it floated.

But Old Woman said that they would not decide in that way. She would throw a large rock. If it floated the people would die for four days. If it sank they would die forever. Then Old woman threw the rock into the water, and it sank to the bottom. “There,” she said. “It is better that the people die forever, for, if they did not die forever, they would never feel sorry for each other, and there would be no sympathy in the world.”

Somewhere in the darkness an owl hooted. An army of bullfrogs buried in the rushes was croaking an impromptu chorus. Of the four Blackfoot creation myths, Alex definitely liked the last story best. Rolling over on his side, he went soundly off to sleep.

*****

In the morning while Alex got the fire ready, Phyllis drove to a convenient store and purchased English muffins, fresh eggs and bacon. In her absence, he let the wood flare up then burn down to a smoldering redness before adding a few small branches. “I’m breaking up with Clarice as soon as she gets back from visiting her parents.”

Phyllis, who was cracking eggs in a bowl, didn’t bother to raise her eyes. “You didn’t seem very well suited for one another.” Drizzling shredded cheddar cheese over the egg, she poured the mixture into the frying pan. “Such a pretty woman, Clarice won’t have much trouble finding a new partner.”

A light breeze kicked up, fanning the smoke in Alex’s face, forcing him to shift a half-turn to the right. “After I settle things with Clarice, I thought maybe we could start seeing each other.”

“Perhaps, but not right away… that would be in bad taste and give rise to gossip.” The egg batter began to congeal and Phyllis stirred it with a spatula. “Maybe we could hike over to Sabbaday Falls this morning.”

“What’s there to see?”
“It’s a three-tiered waterfall just off the Kancamagus Highway in Waterville. The upper drop is about eight feet, plunging into a deep, emerald punchbowl with a flume that empties out in a broad basin far below.”

“How long should we wait before dating?”

Strips of hickory-smoked bacon were bubbling on a separate griddle that Phyllis positioned on a slower burning section of wood. “At least a month, perhaps two.” She scraped some eggs onto a plastic dish and handed him the food. Phyllis hooked a hand around his neck, pulled Alex close and planted a kiss on a stubbly cheek. Not the least bit provocative - blustery excesses were not a part of Phyllis Moon’s emotional makeup - the impulsive gesture was more an intimation of things to come. Pushing him away at arm’s length, she said, “The bacon will be ready in a moment. You can brown your English muffins with a dab of butter on the griddle, but wipe the bacon grease away first.”

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