A Better Man

Clara Morrow dropped the printout onto the bistro table and sat down across from Dominica Oddly.

“Do you really think this?”

“I do.”

“You say here”—she tapped the paper—“that I was once promising. Exceptional, even. But then I got lazy.”

“Yes.”

“But it’s not true.”

“No?” asked Oddly. “Are you sure?”

The critic had left Clara in her studio to read in private the review that had just gone public. She’d strolled across the village green, and, brushing slush off the bench, she sat, looking at the three pine trees that clearly gave the place its name. It seemed a little “on the nose” for Oddly. Too obvious. Three pines in Three Pines.

She’d have preferred if there were two pines. It would make the place more interesting. Give it a story. What happened to that third tree? Granted, not much of a story, but better than none.

As it was, this hidden little hamlet was pretty but banal. She could almost see the stone and brick and clapboard homes, the church on the hill and the forest behind, turning into a watercolor before her eyes. Something not quite real. Not quite of this world. Certainly not of the gritty, noisy, aggressive world she’d just left.

This was like a pretty painting by some elderly, marginally gifted artist.

Nice. Sweet. Predictable. Safe.

Oddly smiled as she thought of the residents peering through their curtains at the wild black woman in dreadlocks and combat boots sitting in the middle of their peaceful village. She must, she thought, scare them to death.

She’d spotted the bistro when she’d arrived, and now she made for it. Her boots, veterans of sidewalk garbage and dog shit, squelched on grass and mud.

She opened the door and was prepared to enter a space decorated with Grand-mère in mind. All lace and gingham. Stuffed with old snowshoes and spinning wheels and dusty twig baskets filled with dried flowers hanging from the rafters. Furnished with cheap imitation pine tables and uncomfortable chairs.

If Oddly knew one thing about Québec, it was that it was a cheap imitation of the real thing. France.

Instead what she found was a place both contemporary and somehow ageless. It seemed to straddle the centuries. Comfortable armchairs upholstered in fresh linens sat around an assortment of rugged old tables. Dark oak. Maple. Pine. Tables made from the forests that surrounded the village. They were scratched and dented and worn by a century or more of meals. Of drinks. Of companionship. And hardship.

The place settings, displayed in an old Welsh dresser, were white china with clean modern lines.

Oriental rugs, hand-tied, were scattered on the wide-plank floors. The walls were freshly plastered and painted a shade that contrasted nicely with the warm wood and stone.

She looked up.

Nothing hung from the sturdy beams.

The bistro smelled of rich coffee and subtle maple smoke from the fieldstone fireplaces at either end of the room.

It was a place of confidences. Of companionship. Where secrets were exchanged and yearnings admitted. Where children grew into adults, into seniors. Where homecomings were celebrated and lives celebrated by those left behind.

It was a place where both grandmother and granddaughter would feel at home.

“Bonjour,” said a young woman coming from behind the long bar to greet her. “Une table? C’est votre choix.”

She smiled at Dominica, as though dreadlocked New York critics were their regular customers, and pointed to the near-empty room. It was midafternoon, between rushes.

The few other customers had glanced at her, then gone back to their conversations. Showing little interest and no fear.

“Ummm,” said Oddly, not at all sure what the young woman had said.

“Oh, sorry. English. Sit anywhere you like. The fireplace has just come open. I’ll clean the table for you.”

The young woman spoke in slightly accented English. As Oddly followed her to the large armchair by the fire, she thought she might have to do something rare for her.

Reconsider her opinion.

This was no France wannabe. This was genuine Québec. With its own history, etched into flesh and bone, into stone and wood. Into the cushions of the armchairs and sofas, retaining the impressions of warm bodies who’d sat there before her. Eating, talking, commiserating, laughing. For generations.