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By Root 451 0

earth is springy and smells of damp. Two maples at the corner of the garden cast black, sharp-edged shadows; everything else sparkles with such sunlight that Florence’s vision vibrates. Ripe berries plop into their hands at a touch. Frannie, it turns out, has brought champagne. “And not only jam,” she is saying, “but a really delicious liqueur my friend has the recipe for. And look over there! Those two apricot trees bloomed this spring, and that peach. The one next to it is a Chinese chestnut. She lives here alone and hates to see it go to waste. In the fall, she says she has the best apples in the county.” Frannie shades her eyes and looks across the field toward the house. “I was hoping she’d come out. Anyway, last year there were seven bushels on one tree alone.”

“Frannie, I’ve known you all these months, and I’ve never realized what an earth mother you are. I feel like I’ve missed something.”

“Converts are the most ardent, you know. But don’t you love the romance of the harvest?” She sucks a berry off the stem.

“The romance of putting up two dozen quarts of tomatoes and a dozen quarts of beans in one evening when the temperature and the humidity are both ninety-five?”

“The romance of opening a jar of strawberry jam in the middle of December!”

“I’d call that the romance of consumption.”

“Call it what you like. Mmmmm!” She bites into another strawberry and glances toward the still house again.

They sit under one of the maples with their shoes off, tearing hunks of bread. Champagne sizzles in their bowl of berries, and the butter is still cool, dewy. Florence is excited. She thinks she will penetrate the marriage mystery at last, then is ashamed of her unseemly curiosity. Still … She says, “Bryan and I saw Philip yesterday.” A lie.

“How is Bryan, anyway? Are you in love yet?”

“We’ve agreed not to say. He’s very compelling, though. Especially at six a.m., when I think he’s asleep, and he grabs my foot as I’m sneaking out of bed. I thought I was going to jump right out of my skin.”

“Do you talk?”

“Nonstop.”

There is a pause here, where Frannie might mention her conversational history with Philip, but instead she rolls over and closes her eyes. Florence presses ahead. “I actually spoke to him, Philip I mean. I said hello, he said hello, Bryan said hello.” She looks at Frannie. Nothing. “He’s so boyish-looking. From a distance he looks about eighteen, and getting younger. That’s another thing about Bryan. Being prematurely grizzled makes him look very wise. Are you asleep?”

Frannie shakes her head and slips her hand into the bowl. “Mmmmm,” she says.

“Do you ever miss him?” This is so bold that Florence blushes.

Frannie shrugs. “How’s Bryan’s work going?” Bryan’s work is to figure out how many ways the hospital can use the computer it has just purchased.

“Terrifically,” says Florence. “Now they’re thinking of renting time to the county and making a profit on the purchase.”

“But they bought it with county money.”

“The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” Florence sighs. “You know, you always turn the conversation over to me, and I always rise to the bait.”

“More strawberries?” Frannie holds out the bowl, and Florence gives up. They talk about a movie Frannie wants to go to, then about the seven-pound twins Florence saw the previous week. Florence begins to think of Bryan and to wonder what time it is. The champagne in the bottom of the crystal bowl is flat. Just then Frannie says, “I hate the way Philip and I admired ourselves all the time.”

Florence picks up the napkins and the champagne cork and the wrappings from the loaf of bread, and then it is time to depart.

“Well, I don’t think life has passed me by.” Florence, in her bathrobe, strikes a pose on the stairs. Bryan looks up from his book, elaborately distracted. Florence lifts her chin. Lately, they have been debating whether life has passed Bryan by.

“No, bitch,” he says, just containing a smile. “Life hasn’t passed you by.” Florence exhibits an ostentatious bit of calf. “You were standing in the road, and it ran you right over!