The Birthday Lunch Read Free Page A

bills. Crossing the stone bridge, he glances at the Kiwanis swimming pool where youngsters are already splashing about at the shallow end under the watchful eyes of their mothers. Four houses past the Anglican Church, Hal slows the Impala to a crawl and allows himself a moment to admire the modest beauty of his store, Better Old Than New: the slate grey clapboard, the white shutters andgingerbread trim, the oval window beneath the eaves. Behind him, a black car with a Vermont licence plate looms into view and when Hal pulls over to let it pass, the Impala shudders, but the shudder is momentary and the car resumes cruising speed. But it happens again at the Sussex Corner intersection. Again the shudder is momentary and soon Hal is on the road named after the Dutch Empire Loyalists who cleared and farmed this valley.
    The Dutch Valley is a model of neatness and order: the tidy division of land and carefully mown fields, the plain, well-kept houses. Even the cattle grazing the hillsides look neat and clean as do the rows of corn that even in the heat stand tall. Leaving the sweep of open farmland, Hal enters the Waterford Valley where the road curls around the elbows of a meandering creek and wooded hills crowd the road, giving the valley a closed, secretive look. Hal cruises past an assortment of modest houses, a church, a community hall.
    Hal and Lily first saw the village of Waterford twenty years ago when their children were willing to go on Sunday drives. They were driving through the village when Claudia pointed to a tiny house with a grass roof tucked into a hillside. “Frodo lives in that house,” she said, and was immediately corrected by her brother. “A hobbit would never live near a church,” Matthew told her. “Hobbits believe in wizards, not God.” Hal had never heard of hobbits and Lily explained that hobbits were hairy-footed little creatures who were much nicer than people.
    Huntley’s Inn is at the top of a steep hill, reached by a dirt road that passes the graveyard of St. John the EvangelistAnglican Church. At the top of the hill the Impala shudders again but as soon as Hal hits the accelerator the car leaps onto the gravel parking lot and he sees Sharon Huntley painting the veranda with a long-handled roller. He backs the car close to the veranda steps and opening the door, he steps into the heat. “You sure picked a hot day for painting,” he says.
    “I didn’t pick it,” Sharon says. “It picked me.”
    After Hal has lifted the furniture from the trunk, Sharon asks if he wants help carrying it inside. “From a squirt like you?” he says in the teasing way he employs with young women. Young entrepreneurs like Sharon and Reg impress Hal who knows first hand the risks of starting a new business, the importance of taking the time to figure out the pros and cons before making the plunge. In Toronto Reg worked as a chef in a classy restaurant while Sharon taught high school math. After ten years spent teaching, she quit her job, cashed in her pension and taught herself the ins and outs of playing the stock market. Within four years she had made enough money to finance building this twelve-room house on five acres of land. When Hal asked for Sharon’s stock market advice, she said, “Sell your stocks before they peak and start investing again in the fall.” Advice that is of no use to Hal who has no pension to cash in, and no savings.
    Hal carries the commode and then the rocking chair up two flights of stairs to the attic where there is a bedroom on either side of a bathroom. The only furnishings so far are the beds and Sharon asks Hal to keep an eye out for bedside tables and blanket stands.
    Downstairs, Sharon offers a cup of coffee. A practised salesman, Hal knows it is bad business to refuse a kindness and theydrink their coffee sitting at a card table in the unfinished kitchen. There is no sign of Reg and habituated to affable, unhurried talk, Hal asks where he is. Sharon tells him Reg is