A Single Thread (Cobbled Court) Read Free Page A

most recent having been built in 1902. Walking down the sidewalk on an autumn afternoon, under a canopy of red gold maple leaves shot through with shafting sunbeams, you half expect a man in a tall beaver top hat and morning coat, or a woman wearing hoopskirts and pulling on hand-tatted lace gloves, to open the gate in one of the white picket fences and wish you good-day. New Bern is a town with an active and powerful historic preservation society, and it shows.
    There is little distance or demarcation here between residential and commercial; people who live in town are within easy walking distance of New Bern’s businesses, a small but diverse collection of restaurants, galleries, antique shops, and boutiques housed in two-story brick storefronts with hand-painted signs. There isn’t an inch of neon on New Bern’s main commercial street, aptly called Commerce. And even though the village shops clearly cater to the tourist trade (you’d be hard-pressed to buy a quart of milk or packet of shoelaces in the village; all those mundane but necessary transactions take place in charmless cinderblock buildings along the state route leading out of town), there is a feeling of authenticity to the place.
    Taking a quick walk around, perusing the village before deciding how to spend the rest of my day, I was pleased to see there was nothing too precious or souvenirlike for sale in the store windows, no T-shirts claiming that the wearer’s girlfriend, husband, or grandma went to New Bern and all they got was a lousy T-shirt, and none of the merchants had dubbed their boutiques a “shoppe.” I was looking forward to poking through the stores, but my rumbling stomach insisted that lunch come first.
    There were three or four restaurants to choose from, and all of them looked nice, but I settled on a place called the Grill on the Green. Though it was still early, the restaurant was packed, and I had to wait for a few minutes to be seated. Waiting for my table, I noticed that while many of the customers were obviously tourists (the shopping bags and cameras gave them away), the handsome, gray-haired gentleman who was seating diners greeted many by their first names, kissing the ladies on the cheek and exchanging hearty handshakes and laughter with the men. Clearly, the restaurant was a favorite of locals as well as visitors. It was easy to see why; the atmosphere was elegant but relaxed, with brick red wainscoting running beneath walls painted a warm yellow. The simple black Windsor chairs looked cozy around the white-clothed tables. And the food? To die for! The chicken and endive salad I ordered was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Normally, I hate eating alone; it always makes me feel so conspicuous. But with the French patio doors at the front of the restaurant open to catch a warm, fall breeze, a pleasant buzz of conversation in the background, and a great glass of pinot grigio to sip, I found myself smiling for the first time in a long time.
    The waitress brought me a cappuccino to finish my meal. “So, are you up from New York for the day?”
    “Texas, actually. I took a room at the Inn for a few days. I’ve always wanted to see the fall colors.”
    “Texas?” she commented, looking at me with interest before placing the cup on the table. “That’s a long way. Well, you picked the perfect time for it. The weather’s beautiful. We’ll be packed this weekend, that’s for sure.”
    “I noticed. Do you always have so many tourists?”
    She shook her head and put a ceramic container filled with pink, blue, and white sugar packets down near my cup. “We’ve always got a steady stream of weekenders from New York, but we’re too far from the city to be a big tourist destination—not like the Hamptons or anything. Which is fine with me.” She grinned. “I went to East Hampton for the weekend once and I couldn’t wait to get home—too many people! Here, we’re busy in the summer, and, of course, we get a lot of