g around the
trees. Don stood and walked slowly across the square. "So long, Ruby."

"Be good, now," she said.

You can survive unloved, but you can't make it without loving
somebody--or something. Ruby loved her birds. And who knows who else?
He loved Lorna. Lorna loved Pike, or used to, and Molly, their
daughter. Molly herself would be falling in love any time now, if she
weren't already. Round and round we go, getting the job done. Except he
hadn't gotten the job done, not unless you counted the paintings as
kids. Not a happy train of thought. Piss on it, he'd have a waffle at
Cleary's. Tide him over until the big feed.

On Thursdays they had the big feed, he and Riles and Kai. Thursdays,
because weekends were unpredictable. He walked the six blocks to
Cleary's, just around the corner from the house--Riles's house, Kai's
house--he couldn't call it home exactly, although he'd spent more
winters than he cared to remember in the basement studio reserved for
caretakers or indigent relatives. He was a little of each--an old
friend of Riles and useful around the place, watching the gallery
several times a week and doing the framing jobs that came along.

The Cleary's waitresses were wearing _Midnight in the Garden of Good
and Evil_ T-shirts. Not a bad image, from the cover of the best seller,
but it annoyed him to see his friends wearing advertisements.

"Pecan waffle, Don?"

"Yes, Ma'm--for my strength. It's that time again. I'm going north."

"Take me with you."

"Can't afford you."

"Next year," she suggested.

"Do my best," Don said. "Something to live for. There's not much up
there, Jilly, just Yankees, shivering and eating beans."

"I could stand the shivering. Want some grits?"

"Read my mind," Don said.

He ate slowly, drank an extra cup of coffee, left a big tip, and got on
with packing. By cocktail hour he had cleaned his room and stashed his
belongings in a footlocker and a duffel bag. The easel and the painting
gear stayed, part of the decor. He packed his best brushes, his
watercolors, and a block of good paper. There was no limit to the
number of lighthouse and/or lobster boat paintings he could sell, if
they were cheap enough. The portraits and the figures were different.
Drawn or done fully in oils, they were given away, or nearly. It was
hard to put a price on them.

"How well you look, Don," Kai said.

"Thank you. I'm having my annual burst of optimism. Did Riles tell you
that I'm off