back home. We'd be mighty hungry by then. And with the horses in such a state, I don't want to drive them till they settle down.' 'Well, if you say so, Aaron. I'm hungry, too.'
They walked the short distance to Main Street and turned the corner toward the cafГ© in the middle of the block. It was dark inside the deep, narrow building after the brightness outside. The light from the front windows was partially ob- scured by potted plants, which decorated that area. He led the way to a high-backed booth near the front and handed her in, then seated himself across from her. The after-church business was ebbing, so there was no wait before a woman in a long cobbler's apron approached their booth. 'Howdy, Aaron, Mary,' she greeted them. 'Hello, Annie. What have you got back there that smells so good?' 'I got the best ham dinner in town,' bragged Annie Halek with a throaty laugh. 'At least that's what I've been telling myself all morning while I cooked it.' 'That sounds fine. Why don't you bring us two of them. Okay, Mary?' 'That sounds good, Annie,' Mary agreed. 'You folks seein' Jonathan off on the train today?' Annie inquired. 'I heard he's got some idea of buyin' himself a big, fancy bull to bring back.' 'Well, I don't know how big it'll be-it's just a calf he's after-but that's right. He's gone clear down to Minneapolis to see a thoroughbred Black Angus.' 'Old Man Michalek's kid was in here tellin' us about it the other day.'
'News sure travels fast around here,' Aaron noted, but Annie must have decided she'd wasted enough time on small talk, for she left abruptly then, saying, 'Two ham dinners comin' up!'
When she was gone, Mary said, 'After the dance Saturday night, everybody knows all about Jonathan's plans.'
But once she said it there was a resurrection of other things Jonathan had planned, other things that had happened at the dance. Their thoughts ran parallel, flashing impressions between them of a yellow dress, a blistered palm, the lingering scent of lavender, the brushing of bodies. They both reached for water glasses across the table, tipped them up in unison, and caught each other in a glance over the glass rims. But that broke the spell, and Aaron knew how ridiculous they must look, acting like adolescents. 'What do you suppose Jonathan would think if he knew we'd seen him off on his way to buy beef, then sat down to a dinner of pork?' he wondered aloud. 'I suppose he'd be jealous, since he's probably choking down his dry sandwich right now.' She pictured Jonathan on the train as they'd last seen him, waving. 'Jonathan, jealous? That'll be the day. He's so filled with his own plans that he wouldn't know if he was eating roofing shingles spread with moss.' 'Oh, that's just his way, Aaron. He's not as hard as he seems.' 'I've lived with him longer than you have, and I know all about his 'ways,' as you call them,'
Aaron said, 'and some of them I don't condone.'
Annie approached, bringing bowls of steaming, rich soup to set before them. When she left, Mary put her spoon ab- sently into the broth, studying it as she said, 'Some of them I don't condone, either.'
Aaron leaned his forearms on the edge of the table, looking at her. 'Mary, we're playing cat-and-mouse with each other, and it isn't necessary. Can't we just pretend we're the same Aaron and Mary we always were and forget Jonathan and all the rest?'
She was still toying with her soup, but flicked a glance up at his face, then quickly away again. 'It's not easily forgotten.'
And it wasn't.
The rest of the meal was eaten in silence, broken only by remarks on the tastiness of Annie's cooking. They truly had lost the old easiness between them.
Finally Aaron asked, 'Mary, if we can't make it through a ham dinner together, how will we make it through two or three nights?'
She hadn't expected his candor, and it stopped her cold. Having her mouth full gave Mary time to think of an answer, but there was none. She didn't know how they'd do it. Swallowing the mouthful, eyes wide, she gulped. 'I don't know, Aaron.'
They sat there looking at each other and wondering togeth- er what the answer was. 'Do you want some dessert, Mary?' 'No, thank you. I think we'd better leave now.'
'Give me a minute to pay for this and I'll be right with you,' he said, going to find Annie and pay the bill.
Annie Halek was like the town tap: turn her on and she ran off at the mouth until she either ran dry or was turned off. Aaron worried now that she might have read something into his and Mary's attitudes, something to pass on to other customers. If so, there was little he could do about it. He buttered her up a little, anyway, saying, 'That dinner was the best in town, Annie.' 'Well, now, I might get swellheaded at that if mine wasn't the only restaurant in Browerville,' the big woman said, laughing. But she had seen nothing around the highbacked booth, and even if she had, Annie Halek would consider it a compliment to her cooking that folks could be so engrossed in eating they hardly spoke a word through an entire meal.
The luxury of a meal in a cafГ© was an unaccustomed treat for Mary, and in spite of the uneasiness between herself and Aaron, there was a relaxed air of freedom about the day. As they came out of the dim cafГ© into the dazzling sunlight, the day enhanced the feeling. No field work, no cooking, no re- sponsibilities awaited them until evening. They turned to walk the short distance to the end of the boardwalk, but their steps were slow. At the end, when they reached the street corner, he took her arm as she stepped down. He released her elbow then as they walked the block to Anson's place, but once again at the buggy he took her arm to hand her up. His courtesies filled her with a warm, protected feeling. Once again seated in the buggy, Aaron asked, 'Would you like the bonnet up before we start?' 'Heavens no, Aaron. I love the sun on my face.' 'That's good. So do I.'
And heading out of town she reveled in the magic of the golden Minnesota day. When viewed from the height of the buggy seat, it was like gliding along on a low-flying cloud, passing the smells and sights and sounds of the countryside as an angel might ride on her way through heaven. The first wild roses had been too impatient to wait for June. They threw their fragrance from ditches and meadows in tantalizing appeal, competing with wild plum, apple, and lilac. They winked pinkly at the passing rig while great whorls of white blossoms hung half-concealed where copses bordered the road. Katydids played their high-pitched wings in duet with the frogs that thrummed hoarse voices from patches of marshland where red-winged blackbirds bobbed and swayed atop last year's exploding cattails. Crows teased the horses, hesitating at the edge of the road ahead until the last possible moment before rising in awkward fashion, flapping unwieldy wings that somehow drew them aloft. Meadowlarks fluted their elusive clarion call, unaware that it checked human breath until it was repeated. The rig rocked along, accompan- ied by bugs, blossoms, and birds, and the magic of the day healed something between the two people. 'Imagine living in the city all your life and missing this,' Mary said. 'One year in the city was enough for me,' Aaron said, 'let alone all my life.'
'You don't know how lucky you were to grow up here and have all this around you. Sometimes, like on a day like this, I can hardly believe I wasn't born here, too. I feel like I was, like all this was born right into me.' 'Don't you ever miss Chicago?' 'It's not the place a person misses, it's the people in it, and there are none of my people left there since Daddy died. Aunt Mabel and Uncle Garner are the only ones now-and they're here. But sometimes I can't help feeling guilty that I came to their house that summer. Like if I'd stayed in Chicago, Daddy might still be alive.' 'His death was an accident, and if you'd been there, it wouldn't have prevented it. Accidents happen in the factories like that all the time, but in the city nobody seems to care. That's the worst part about the city-nobody caring.' He was pensive, recalling that lonely time on his own. But the day was too bright for sad recollections. 'I'd just as soon not remember it, and I'm sure you wouldn't, either,' Aaron said, shrugging off the memories.
But Aaron never talked much about city life, and she often wondered why. 'Didn't you make any friends while you were there?' she asked. 'Friends? Not exactly.' 'If not friends, then what?' 'Just…acquaintances. Nobody it bothered me to leave when I came back here,' Aaron answered, remembering hard women, hard bosses, hard faces in the streets. 'Were any of them women?' She braved the question, suddenly wanting to know.
He glanced at her askance, a partial smile teasing one corner of his mouth now. 'What does it matter?' he asked.
She flipped her hands palm-up to signify it didn't matter at all. 'Oh, no matter.' Then with a sudden shift of her shoulders she adopted the air of a proper city lady, one palm resting on the handle of an imaginary parasol, the other lightly upon the arm of an imaginary escort. 'I'll bet they were. And I'll bet they took your arm as you crossed
