A little more to read with her coffee.

As soon as the lids were on the coffee pots she unlocked the front door. The first customer usually had to wait for their coffee, but it was always delivered with a small glass of ice because it would be too hot to drink. When the first pot came off of the burner another went on in order to keep up with demand. Etta often wondered how so few could drink so much.

Etta unlocked the door and turned the faded paper sign in the window from closed to open just as the neon Coke Cola clock hands divided the face in half. Another day at The Cove had begun. She walked back to the counter where the Indian boy they called Sunny was pouring ice in the cooler under the front counter. Sunny had a regular routine and he followed the same order of chores just as Etta had taught him. He filled the ice chest first, put the fresh produce by the sink to be washed and then he made a bucket of ammonia water and washed the glass in the front door, the window on the front of the cafe and then the long mirror that went down the side wall of the dinning room. Etta could not stand an eatery with dirty windows and it was never a concern at The Cove.

The bell over the door announced the first customer of the day. Douglas took off his cream colored cowboy hat and walked to the counter. “Morning Miss Etta,” he said with a voice well seasoned with weariness.

“Douglas, what can I get ya son?” Etta had watched Ruth and Douglas come up from little kids. Douglas would often sit on the front steps of the house and watch Stokie and the crew as they framed the houses across the street. Douglas had been given strict orders by his mother that the front steps were as close as he was to get to the lots where the men were working.

“Cup coffee I guess, are the biscuits up yet?”

“I expect they are, one to wash and one to dry, as usual?” she asked.

“I reckon, I do seem to eat the same thing over and over, don't I?”

“I think we all do,” Etta said. “Douglas, you don't mind me saying so, you look like the south end of a load of bad luck. You feelin' okay?” Even though Etta knew that he wasn't a little boy any more she still felt a little sorry for him since he had no momma to ask after him.

“That's a good way of sayin' it Miss Etta, that's about how I feel. I haven't slept for more than a few hours back to back for two months or better. I walk the floor for hours, I'm worn out.” the exhaustion was evident in Douglas' bloodshot eyes. Each morning when he looked in the mirror to shave his eyes looked like two Missouri strawberries mashed flat.

“You feel alright otherwise?” asked Etta as she put a bowl with one split biscuit covered with heavy sausage gravy in front of him. She set a small plate next to the bowl with another biscuit on it with a buckeye size piece of butter in a cup with an equal serving of strawberry jam next to it. “There you go, one to wash and one to dry, coffee's about done, hon'”

“Other than being worn out, I feel fine.”

“You eatin' a good meal over there at your place or are you eatin' like a bachelor? You know, fried eggs, bacon, sliced tomatoes, stale bread? When have you had a vegetable Douglas?”

“Last Sunday, Miss Etta. I cooked a pt of green beans with jowl meat and onions, I put some new potatoes in em and baked off a ham steak like Mother used to do.”

“If you're doin' that this Sunday, Stokie and I will be around after church. You wanna bake the pie or should I bring one?” Etta and Douglas laughed but Etta knew that Douglas wasn't afraid of the grocery store or a four burner Roper Range. Ruth had told Etta once that Douglas fried a better pan of chicken than their mother did. Etta had told her that she bet that was true, she knew that their mother never took a prize for her cooking, but the woman could sew.

A little something for Barb.

No matter how much flour Etta put on the counter it wasn't enough to keep the pie crust from sticking to the rolling pin. The humidity was high enough that the pie crust wasn't working and it seemed that very little else in town was working either. The fan over head moved in a lazy rotation, but it wasn't working to keep the air stirring. Air this thick wasn't going to stir. The black Philco fan on top of the Coke Cola case wasn't doing it's job, if it had been it would have blown the flour off of the counter and onto Etta's perspiration saturated apron. The apron created another layer of clothing that had it been winter would have been most welcome, but in the sweltering heat and humidity of Anderson on this summer day, it was just another layer to add to the warmth, Missouri in summer didn't need to help anyone with warmth.

The ice in her tea glass had long since quit working at keeping her drink cool, it had changed jobs and was working at diluting her refreshment, though now it was anything but. Nothing seemed to be working in The Cove, the line cook who worked in the kitchen was sitting in the alley on a stack of vegetable crates with a smoldering Lucky Strike between his lips. The temperature and humidity wasn't any lower there, but there was a little shade behind the building at this time of day and the shade might be working at making Leo think it was cooler there. Etta didn't believe it, but maybe Leo did. Maybe cool and comfortable was all in your head, a state of mind, she thought. She worked up a chuckle and said out loud to herself, “if your personal thermostat is in your brain, then I guess that all of this is in your head.” With a sense of disgust Etta balled up the pie dough, wrapped it in waxed paper and put it in the red Coke cooler. The cooler was working, in fact it seemed to be working overtime.

Etta soaked a dish cloth in the sink of hot water and cleaned the flour from the counter. She swished the cloth about in the sink in an effort to rinse the newly made paste from the old dishrag. “I'm all in,” Etta thought as she redirected a trickle of sweat that was running down her forehead. Heat waves as bad as this one didn't come often, but when they did they immediately brought to mind the one before. Was this one as bad? Maybe a tad worse, they were always a little worse in the minds of adults, kids didn't seem to mind. The numbers on the thermometer and barometer didn't lie, this one was about the same as the last and none of them were good.

Because I've not written like this for a while.

Snowflakes the size of eider down were blowing past the window. The lacy fabric that made the curtains hung against the pristine clear glass giving the impression that there were twice the number of flakes falling. The occasional gust of wind blew the sheer lace away from the window and made the room cool from the draft that the loose window casement allowed. The snow would dance about on the outside of the pane as the curtains moved with them on the inside as if they heard a music that no human could hear.

Across the room there were logs from the apple tree that fell in the spring crackling in the fireplace, the room was filled with the rich aroma of the roasting apple branches. The oil lamp on the small library table flickered in competition with the fireplace, it wasn't the usual form of light for the room, but today it had been lit to assist with the ambiance; the mood that the room was being instructed to take on just as one might add a scarf or pin to dress up a drab woolen overcoat.

She lifted the old hickory chair from its place at the table and set it next to the window. A blast of cold wind blew the lace away from the window frame as she did so. The chill and the draft made her remember that she needed her sweater from the arm of the sofa. With the dark gray sweater hanging from her shoulders and buttoned at her throat, it made her think of the strict and colorless librarian who worked in the elementary school when she was very young. Her father knew the woman well, he had been sent to the hall by her many times when he was a lad in grammar school. He often spoke of her as being so old that she was in the same high school yearbook as Adam and Eve. Even the wit of her father didn't bring light to her face, though there were few times that thoughts of his bon mots did not bring a smile to her face.

A darker cloud moved across the sky dimming not just the room but the landscape as well. The dark day was very welcome, it matched her mood, her heart felt as heavy as the dark snow clouds appeared to be outside of the window. How could they be that heavy and not fall from the sky she wondered. They are falling from the sky she thought, they are just doing it one flake at a time. It was their method they were using to fall, not the one that she would have prescribed.

On the table by the window sat a simple wooden box, it was not primitive it was tastefully understated. She ran her finger across the satin finished edge of it and admired the beautifully colored inlaid woods that created a picture on the lid of the box. There was a dark red curvy piece inset in the lid,, many loden colored pieces fashioned pine trees and a nearly white piece of birch cut into a perfect circle made the moon. A river running through the trees, the simplicity of the picture made it even more serene and peaceful to look at.

Out of doors it was growing darker making it more difficult to see the snow against the pine trees in the woods across the barn lot. She squinted to see the trees as they disappeared into the night. A gust blew the curtain again just as she raised the lid of the box she had been admiring. As she did the music began to play, the tines and teeth powered by a main spring played Moon River. Tied with a pink ribbon was a lock of her dearest's hair. They cut the glistening strands from her silken mane the morning of her first chemo knowing they should do so before her hair was gone. They would listen to Andy Williams sing Moon River on the car stereo as they traveled to the cancer center. She always called her, “my Huckleberry Friend,” as she let her out at the door of the oncology center and she never failed to look at her in the rear view mirror as her sweetheart trudged to the door. Now there was only this flaxen lock from the music box and the tight curl coiled up in the oval locket that hung between her own breasts. She closed her eyes and whispered the words to the music box's accompaniment ...”moon river and me.”