Coffeehouse

Let’s go.

Where?

Anywhere.

To the coffeehouse?

Megan had developed an affection for coffeehouses since Jim moved in with her. She had lost her agoraphobia and her paranoia. It was bizarre. She supposed she had needed a boyfriend. (Feminism be damned!) She had thought she could never replace her husband, but she and Jim had romantic fun. She would not admit to Rose how romantic her life was. Rose was having marital problems and had bought a house, though she hadn't told Ben, and she said she was going to move into it soon without telling Ben. (When? Megan wondered.) Megan went out all the time now. Megan was the new Rose. She even volunteered briefly at a homeless center and then quit in a huff when she realized there was nothing to do because they had too many volunteers.

But it didn’t depress her much. Suddenly she was outside every day, doing her own shopping and taking long walks. She became a familiar sight at her neighborhood bookstore, where she had long chats with the owner. He read all day. He had a passion for Terry Southern. He wanted her to read Terry Southern's Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes.

But I’m not going to buy this. She explained she no longer smoked dope.

Nobody is going to buy it. That’s why I’m lending it to you.

He explained that most of his books never got bought. He did best in the summer, when people were out and about, but during the long slow winter months he lent books. Sometimes people bought them in the end.

Megan sighed. She spent a lot of time hanging out at the branch library now that she was well. She didn’t need the Terry Southern book.

Megan still had her routine. After reading newspapers, watching CNN, and researching a new book (this one about obscure socialists) at the library, Megan liked to go out with Jim. They went to a coffeehouse almost every night and usually sat for an hour talking politics. He was already supporting Obama while she leaned toward nobody. She was moderately excited that Senator Clinton was running, though of course Clinton was a centrist and Megan was a socialist. But if Megan were a socialist, why was she supporting the corporate chains? She no longer felt guilty about her penchant for Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, and Caribou. They were luxurious, with their plump comfortable chairs and lustrous wooden tables, and their coffee was excellent.

She was supposed to support the independents. But they had gone downhill. Their coffee beans were no damned good. The coffee was watery, so why should she support them?

She would be voting Republican next. Or at least Democratic.

No, she still voted Socialist. it was her thing. She had read the profile in The New York Times Magazine of Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator in Vermont. She wanted a bumper sticker that said, Bernie! Of course she hadn’t driven her car in years and had no idea if it even worked.

At the coffeehouse her boyfriend worked on his laptop and she read Lover of Unreason, a biography of Assia Wevill, the woman who lived with Ted Huges after Sylvia Plath's deaqth and who also committed suicide by carbon-monoxide poisoning.

I wonder if Ted Hughes killed Plath and Wevill.

Oh, no one thinks that in the UK. That’s a feminist interpretation.

Megan sighed. Anyway, the biographers don’t think so. They simply think she was spoiled and beautiful.

Spoiled beauties. He tapped on his laptop. There are so many of them. You’re an unspoiled beauty.

She laughed. In terms of beauty I’m past it. You’re very nice, though.