Free Serendipity Green by Rob Levandoski Page B

wishes for godsakes you’d paint it.”
    Howie Dornick’s arms are now wrapped tightly around his waist, as if those invisible wasps have found their way down his throat and are now building a hive inside his belly. “I ain’t gonna paint it.”
    Katherine Hardihood finds herself on his side of the sofa, her arms around his shoulders, her pencil-point librarian’s chin dug into his maintenance engineer’s clavicle. “Oh, Howie. Let’s have some more pie.”

7
    Red.
    Yellow.
    Green.
    The cars on Tocqueville stop. The cars on South Mill go.
    D. William Aitchbone drives through the intersection. He’s spent the day expediting divorces in New Waterbury again. March is getting on. Days are stretching out. Temperatures are rising. It hasn’t snowed in three days. That morning he saw the heads of his wife’s daffodils poking through the mulch. That morning he received the news from the Sparrow Hill Nursing Home that his uncle Andy has suffered another stroke. It was his third in two years and likely to be his last.
    Andy was the last Aitchbone to make a living farming. Because he never married—strange since he was as manly as any Aitchbone male—his four-hundred acre farm on Three Fish Creek will go entirely to his nephew, one D. William Aitchbone, who is now driving past his wife and children and his impressive soapy white, green-shuttered Queen Anne, for a strategy session with himself at the Daydream Beanery. Then he will go to the March meeting of the Squaw Days Committee.
    D. William Aitchbone hands his Coffee Club card to the counter girl with the blackcherry lips. All of the little boxes are punched. She makes him the free cappuccino he has coming. He pays for a raisin scone. “They say it’s going to hit fifty tomorrow,” the counter girl says.
    Despite the dulcimer music and the anticipation of his uncle Andy’s death, Aitchbone’s strategy session goes well. At 7:25 he heads for the library, his Burberry open and flapping.
    Everyone is there, even Kevin Hassock, who has just been served with divorce papers.
    Aitchbone acknowledges him with a commiserating, “Kevin.”
    Kevin Hassock, eyes fixed on his shoes, nods back. “Bill.”
    â€œOh, Bill,” Delores Poltruski says, “thank you so much for getting that box elder limb cut down. The Knights of Columbus are simply walking on water.”
    â€œThe real thanks goes to Mayor Sadlebyrne,” D. William Aitchbone says, making sure there is a smidgen of humility in his voice. “I’m not sure how you did it, Woody, but thanks for getting Howie Dornick off his duff.”
    After the mayor nods, D. William Aitchbone initiates a round of applause. Only Katherine Hardihood doesn’t join in.
    â€œNow if we can just get Howie to paint his house,” Delores Poltruski says.
    â€œAmen,” Dick Mueller says.
    â€œIf I were a betting man, I’d bet this will be the year Howie paints it,” D. William Aitchbone says. His courtroom smile flies around the table and lands on Katherine Hardihood’s sour face like a bat on a barn beam. And so the meeting begins:
    Dick Mueller reports that the Chirping Chipmunks unicycle troupe from Akron will indeed participate in the parade. “They’ll be happy to come back as long as we don’t put them behind the mounted color guard from the sheriff’s department again.”
    Dick Mueller’s discussion of the parade is a terrible temptation for D. William Aitchbone. Sweet Jesus, how he wants to tell them about his coup. But even though Victoria Bonobo has talked to her brother, and her brother has talked directly to the Vice President, and even though the VP says he’ll be happy to ride in the Squaw Days parade if he can squeeze it in his schedule, he knows it would be imprudent to spill the beans just yet. “Sounds like the parade is shaping up, Dick. My only recommendation is that you