Point, from banks to car rentals to dress shops, Bagels by Willie had an Abraham Lincoln connection: Lincoln’s third son, named after his uncle William. Willie died of what was likely typhoid fever when he was Maddie’s age.
That didn’t explain the bagel shop’s New York décor, dominated by a set of black-and-white photographs of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and other New York City landmarks, but not everything had to make sense.
I went through the motions of greeting patrons I knew. My GED student, Lourdes Pino, took my order for an asiago cheese bagel and tried to start up our usual bantering about the peculiarities of the English language.
“Don’t put flour on a flower” was her offering today. Ordinarily I’d respond in kind, but today I had nothing to counter with. “I’ll see you next Tuesday as usual, Mrs. Porter?” Lourdes asked, as if seeking assurance that I wasn’t withdrawing altogether from our relationship.
I nibbled at my bagel and tried to tune in on the enjoyable chatter among Henry, Taylor, and Maddie, about the miniature apartment building and other woodworking projects that, on another day, would have fascinated me. I perked up a bit when I heard mention of a half-scale (only a half inch to every foot of life size) rocking chair and a dining room table with an inlaid wood design.
Maddie took up the slack for me, making up for my drifting attention. Except for frequent cell phone text messages, she kept the conversation going. First we had to deal with e-mailing, then ubiquitous cell phoning, and now text messages. One more high-tech way to stay connected had invaded the environment.
During one moment of halfhearted listening, I thought I heard Maddie say she’d like to buy one of Henry’s rockers for her dollhouse at home in Palo Alto. I had the feeling I should step in and monitor my granddaughter’s interactions, but I didn’t see any harm. I trusted Henry not to take advantage of her in these dealings. In fact, in any negotiation with Maddie, I always worried about the other party.
Maddie and Taylor, who had proclaimed themselves BF, best friends, left to get ice cream for all of us. Lucky for Lincoln Point residents, Sadie at the ice cream shop two doors down and Johnny, who ran the bagel shop, were good friends who allowed each other’s customers to supplement different parts of the meal.
“I’ll have my usual chocolate malt,” I’d told Maddie.
Henry had said, “Surprise me.”
“They seem to get along so well,” I said, for lack of a good transition to adult conversation.
“Did you notice that they were TMing each other while we were talking?”
“And they probably didn’t miss a thing,” I said.
I was proud that I recognized the abbreviation for text messaging, but not pleased that most of the interaction at the table had gone right by me. I was glad it was Henry who opened the topic that had captured my attention.
“David Bridges. I can’t believe it,” he said, scratching his head, full of brown hair that was barely starting to thin. “I wonder how it happened. A heart attack, do you think? We saw him just last night and he looked great. He couldn’t have been more than . . . what? . . . forty-seven or -eight?”
I couldn’t meet his gaze. I pushed a bagel crust around with my cream cheese knife. “Not more than that,” I said.
The news would soon be the talk of the town, but I wondered how soon citizens without relatives in the Lincoln Point Police Department would know that David’s was not a natural death, that he’d been bludgeoned with his own trophy. The crowd at Willie’s included many people from the abbreviated groundbreaking ceremony, but with so little information released, there wasn’t much to talk about. Most of the snippets of conversation I heard had more to do with the one-hundred-degree temperature than with the death of David Bridges.
I didn’t feel I could share what I knew, little as it was,
That didn’t explain the bagel shop’s New York décor, dominated by a set of black-and-white photographs of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and other New York City landmarks, but not everything had to make sense.
I went through the motions of greeting patrons I knew. My GED student, Lourdes Pino, took my order for an asiago cheese bagel and tried to start up our usual bantering about the peculiarities of the English language.
“Don’t put flour on a flower” was her offering today. Ordinarily I’d respond in kind, but today I had nothing to counter with. “I’ll see you next Tuesday as usual, Mrs. Porter?” Lourdes asked, as if seeking assurance that I wasn’t withdrawing altogether from our relationship.
I nibbled at my bagel and tried to tune in on the enjoyable chatter among Henry, Taylor, and Maddie, about the miniature apartment building and other woodworking projects that, on another day, would have fascinated me. I perked up a bit when I heard mention of a half-scale (only a half inch to every foot of life size) rocking chair and a dining room table with an inlaid wood design.
Maddie took up the slack for me, making up for my drifting attention. Except for frequent cell phone text messages, she kept the conversation going. First we had to deal with e-mailing, then ubiquitous cell phoning, and now text messages. One more high-tech way to stay connected had invaded the environment.
During one moment of halfhearted listening, I thought I heard Maddie say she’d like to buy one of Henry’s rockers for her dollhouse at home in Palo Alto. I had the feeling I should step in and monitor my granddaughter’s interactions, but I didn’t see any harm. I trusted Henry not to take advantage of her in these dealings. In fact, in any negotiation with Maddie, I always worried about the other party.
Maddie and Taylor, who had proclaimed themselves BF, best friends, left to get ice cream for all of us. Lucky for Lincoln Point residents, Sadie at the ice cream shop two doors down and Johnny, who ran the bagel shop, were good friends who allowed each other’s customers to supplement different parts of the meal.
“I’ll have my usual chocolate malt,” I’d told Maddie.
Henry had said, “Surprise me.”
“They seem to get along so well,” I said, for lack of a good transition to adult conversation.
“Did you notice that they were TMing each other while we were talking?”
“And they probably didn’t miss a thing,” I said.
I was proud that I recognized the abbreviation for text messaging, but not pleased that most of the interaction at the table had gone right by me. I was glad it was Henry who opened the topic that had captured my attention.
“David Bridges. I can’t believe it,” he said, scratching his head, full of brown hair that was barely starting to thin. “I wonder how it happened. A heart attack, do you think? We saw him just last night and he looked great. He couldn’t have been more than . . . what? . . . forty-seven or -eight?”
I couldn’t meet his gaze. I pushed a bagel crust around with my cream cheese knife. “Not more than that,” I said.
The news would soon be the talk of the town, but I wondered how soon citizens without relatives in the Lincoln Point Police Department would know that David’s was not a natural death, that he’d been bludgeoned with his own trophy. The crowd at Willie’s included many people from the abbreviated groundbreaking ceremony, but with so little information released, there wasn’t much to talk about. Most of the snippets of conversation I heard had more to do with the one-hundred-degree temperature than with the death of David Bridges.
I didn’t feel I could share what I knew, little as it was,
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