Free One Good Turn by Judith Arnold Page A

piece. He’d love to hear her dissect
Macbeth
someday: “Lady Macbeth wasn’t really an evil person. Women had so little power in those days. They had to funnel all their ambitions into their husbands. It’s no wonder she got frustrated and cracked up...”
    “The trouble with these people,” she declared, referring to the play they’d just seen, “was that they’d lost the ability to listen to their inner voices. They’d forgotten how to trust their instincts.”
    “What makes you think their instincts weren’t telling them to con the widow out of her life’s savings?”
    “Because they were miserable.” Jenny’s tone implied that she thought this was obvious. “Not just after they conned the widow but before. You could see their torment. They were doing something they didn’t want to do because they’d lost faith in themselves. But faith is something you can regain any time you want. Faith is always there. I don’t mean religious faith, but faith in yourself, in your ability to trust others and do good things.”
    “Cornball,” Luke teased.
    Jenny chuckled. “It’s really sickening, isn’t it. I wonder if there’s a cure for corniness.”
    “I hope not.”
    They’d reached Dupont Circle. Cars and bicycles cruised down the avenues that converged at the circle like the spokes of a wheel. Elegant new high-rise condominiums towered over the fashionable neighborhood. A third of the way around the circle from the corner on which Luke and Jenny stood was a cafe with a dining patio; several dozen small round tables were arranged behind a decorative wrought-iron fence, each table adorned with a flickering candle.
    “Should we have a drink or an ice-cream?” Luke asked, gesturing toward the patio.
    “An ice-cream,” Jenny decided enthusiastically. She’d had a glass of beer with dinner, but Luke had spent enough time with her in the past week and a half to understand that Jenny was not a heavy drinker.
    The light turned green and they started across the street. The next arc of the circle contained a small plot of greenery—flowering shrubs and grass, a dogwood tree and a couple of carved concrete benches. A young man in a tee shirt, tattered jeans and torn sneakers sat on one of the benches. His sunken cheeks were darkened by a several-day-old stubble of beard, his shoulder-length hair appeared not to have been brushed in ages, his fingers were grimy and his fingernails discolored. A bulging plastic garbage bag stood between his legs. He oozed the sour smell of unbathed flesh.
    Luke instinctively tightened his hold on Jenny’s hand. She wriggled free and stalked across the sidewalk to the man on the bench. For an instant, Luke was too stunned to chase after her. Then he did, panicked by the thought of what the vagrant might do to her.
    By the time he’d reached her she was addressing the man in a low, earnest voice: “Have you eaten anything today?”
    “I had sumpin,” the man mumbled.
    “Do you have a place to stay for the night?”
    “Ain’t gonna rain, lady. I’m all right here.”
    Luke wanted to scream at her to get away from the man. But he held his words, sensing that Jenny would be furious with him if he interfered. She rummaged in her purse, pulled out a couple of dollar bills and pressed them into the vagrant’s grubby hand. “If you’re not hungry tonight, you can save this for tomorrow,” she instructed him.
    “Thank you, ma’am,” said the man. “Thank you. God bless.” He stuffed the money into a pocket of his jeans and then looked away bashfully.
    Jenny straightened up and turned to Luke. Relief rushed through him that the street person hadn’t mugged her. In fact, the guy had behaved with remarkable civility. Even so, she had taken a huge risk in approaching him, and as soon as they put some distance between themselves and the guy, Luke intended to give her a stern sermon on the limits of mercy in the real world.
    He took her hand and hiked with her around the