Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good Read Free Page A

word to the wise,’ she said.
    He turned his attentions to Main Street, which was literally sparkling after a good wash by morning rain. He realized again how Mitford wasn’t unlike an Irish village—colorful storefronts, hanging baskets, benches, a brisk early business in the shops.
    ‘The big news while we were gone,’ she said, ‘is that Avis painted his bins.’
    How had he missed that on his two wimpy morning runs through town? Beneath the green awnings of the Local were the famed outdoor produce bins, now as red as any tomato and filled with pots of yellow chrysanthemums.
    ‘Very Irish, all that color, don’t you think?’
    ‘I do.’ There was Avis Packard, standing outside his grocery store, smoking a cigarette.
    In the end, the real difference between Mitford and the Irish village was pretty profound—Mitford was home, Main Street was his beat. After a year in Whitecap, a year at Meadowgate, the long sojourns in Mississippi and Memphis, and the trek to Ireland, it felt good to ease his foot into the old shoe.
    ‘Irene is a gifted artist,’ she said. ‘Paintings of children. We’ve talked about doing a show together, a benefit for the Children’s Hospital.’
    ‘You hadn’t mentioned it.’ Children’s Hospital in Wesley was hisall-time favorite charity. Never one to relish asking for money, he had nonetheless helped raise $350,000 in the last campaign and thanks be to God for the Florida people who summered in Mitford and environs.
    ‘Sort of waiting ’til we know more about her schedule. Her daughter lost a baby last year, but now there’s another on the way. Then there are two little ones in California and four in Texas and one in Germany. She’s very busy.’
    ‘Blow the horn,’ he said.
    He rolled down the window. J. C. Hogan, editor of the
Mitford Muse
, was legging it across the street to Town Hall.
    ‘Tea shop, noon tomorrow!’ he shouted.
    A thumbs-up from J.C.
    He didn’t like blaring it all over town that he was headed to the tea shop, tomorrow or any other day. They needed to change the blasted name, make it friendlier to the Mitford demographic.
    He left the window down, inhaled rain-washed September air into his lungs. ‘Maybe we should try a new flavor this time.’
    ‘It took decades for you to upscale from vanilla to butter pecan.’
    ‘One cannot upscale from vanilla to anything. Vanilla is the crème de la crème, and butter pecan merely passing fancy. However, I have felt the call of a completely different flavor for a couple of years, but never had the guts to buy it. How about Cherry Garcia?’
Carpe diem
.
    She patted his knee, laughing. ‘You are a wild and crazy guy.’
    He didn’t know how he felt about being patted. When she did that, and she often did that, he felt four years old, or possibly one up from a small-breed canine.
    He moved his knee away, impatient, and opened the
Mitford Muse
. The local weekly had grown considerably thinner of late, but the front page still gave forth a blare of four-color process.
    ‘Timothy?’
    ‘Speak, Kav’na.’
    Mule Skinner was running a quarter-page real estate ad below an ad for residential sewage treatment. Not a good placement. And there was the Helpful Household Hint for the week—he’d never admit to anybody but Puny that he looked for it each Thursday.
    ‘Are you listening?’ she said.
    ‘I am, I am.’
Shoes can be shined with a banana peel. Clean off mess with a dry cloth.
    She wheeled right on Lilac—a little sharply, he thought.
    ‘Do you think you might try what Puny suggested yesterday?’ she asked.
    Never one to mince words, Puny Guthrie had told him that what he needed was a good . . .
    He buried his face in the newspaper.
    . . . purgative.
    •   •   •
    H ERE HE WAS SITTING in a car when he might be running up to the stone wall and looking upon life in the valley—the train hammering through the gorge, with a winding river and blue mountains beyond. It was a mild and perfect day,