A Single Thread (Cobbled Court) by Marie Bostwick

myself.”
    “Thank you, Charlie, but I have to go. I’m not feeling well. Please just add the bill to my tab and leave twenty percent for Jason.” I gave him a quick peck on the cheek and picked up my handbag, then leaned down to speak to Franklin.
    “Franklin,” I said quietly but through clenched teeth, “you’re my lawyer. You’re not my lover, or my minister, or my therapist. You’re my lawyer. That’s all. From here on out, I want you to do what I ask you to do, the job I pay you to do, and nothing else. These are family matters, Franklin. I’ll thank you to stay out of them.”
    I stood erect, and Franklin said, “You’re right. It is a family matter, Abigail. Your family. Why don’t you start acting like it?”
    I didn’t respond, just squared my shoulders and walked out of the restaurant.

8
Evelyn Dixon
     
    I t was a Saturday in midsummer, which meant that even at seven-twelve in the morning, the Blue Bean Coffee and Baking Company was crowded. The bells above the door jingled cheerily as I walked inside, and the line of customers waiting for their morning fix of java turned to look at me.
    After only a few months in New Bern, it was easy for me to distinguish the tourists from the locals; it was all about the clothes.
    The tourists—or the NFH, as Charlie called them, which stood for Not-From-Here—fell into two fashion categories: those who were from New York and owned only black clothing, and those who were also from New York and tried to fit into the New England landscape but didn’t. The latter sported a kind of Ralph Lauren country-preppy-chic with fabrics so crisp and bright you knew they’d been purchased at Saks the day before—a dead giveaway.
    The locals were the ones wearing the authentic version of New England style that designers romanticized—run-over loafers worn with no socks, faded cotton button-downs, slightly wrinkled chinos, and, because a summer rain had chilled the air, pilled, shapeless sweaters with varying degrees of wear at the elbows. New Englanders believe in getting value for their money, and as long as the yarn stayed more or less knit together, they kept wearing the same sweaters they did every year. Fashion trends don’t enter into it at all. I know a man well into his fifties who proudly wears the same blue cashmere his mother bought for his freshman year at Yale. It’s stretched so tight over his post-freshman stomach that you can see pinpoints of his undershirt peeking through the weave, but he insists that it still has plenty of wear in it. He’s a true-blue Yankee.
    All of them, locals and NFH alike, looked grumpy. The NFH because they couldn’t understand why these yokels didn’t take a tip from Starbucks and hire enough people for an assembly line instead of relying on one seventeen-year-old girl to take orders, ring them up, and then, one at a time, and taking her time, brew, steam, ice, blend, or foam each individual drink.
    Likewise, the locals were irritated because they knew if these people who were Not-From-Here were somewhere else, they’d have had their coffee twenty minutes ago. And though my livelihood depended on the patronage of both groups, at the moment I stood firmly on the side of the locals. I needed my coffee, and I needed it now.
    Sitting at one of the Blue Bean’s only two tables, a man rattled a newspaper as he turned the page and cleared his throat. It was Charlie. He lowered the paper and peered over the top.
    “You’re late,” he said, holding out a cardboard cup. “I was thirty seconds from drinking your coffee.”
    “Sorry.” I stepped out of the line and pulled up a chair. The other customers, still caffeine deficient, glared at me, jealous of my good fortune.
    “Thanks for ordering for me. I thought you’d already come and gone.” Several months before, I’d run into Charlie at the Blue Bean and it had become our habit to have our morning coffee together. I dug three dollars out of my purse to pay him back. He