Nobody's Fool

Schuyler Springs. They had not beaten Schuyler Springs. Indeed, Bath had not been in the game, and the
Schuyler Springs Sentinel
had again run an editorial suggesting that Bath be dropped from the Schuyler schedule on humanitarian grounds. People were none too sure things were looking ↑ in Bath, either. A rumor had recently begun to circulate that the Sans Souci would not reopen in the summer as planned, and there was new trouble with The Ultimate Escape. Opposition had arisen in the form of a group concerned that the new Bath cemetery on the outskirts of town would be uprooted, the eternal rest of its inhabitants disturbed. So far the group consisted of no more than a handful of residents whose attempts to draw attention to its cause had been unsuccessful in their own community. The
North Bath Weekly Journal
had failed to cover their maiden protest in front of the demonic clown billboard. Predictably, the
Schuyler Sentinel
, ever alert to the possibility of humiliating its onetime rival and current straw opponent, had covered the protest in a small article in the back section of the weekend edition and since then had run three more articles on the ensuing “controversy,” each longer than the previous, each inching closer to section A. The interest raised by the
Sentinel
articles had forced the
North Bath Weekly Journal to
run a stern editorial suggesting that Schuyler Springs, which had its racetrack and its baths and its summer theater and concert series, should stay out of its less fortunate sister city’s affairs, quit trying to torpedo its long-awaited and much-deserved good fortune. The living residents of Bath needed this economic shot in the arm, the
Journal
said, so let the dead bury the dead. More important, the land designated for the new cemetery had never been suitable for a burial site, the ground being far too boggy. Last spring, after several days of heavy rain, a plot had been backhoed only to discover that the ground beneath already contained an occupant. The casket had migrated several feet from where it was supposed to be located and was no longer precisely beneath the gravestone that marked it, though another casket was. It was feared that the entire regiment of caskets planted since the new cemetery opened ten years earlier, row upon row of them, was slowly marching toward the freeway at the rate of an inch or two a month. Face it, the editorial said, all these dead people were already on the move. Better to dig them up now while they were still more or less where they were supposed to be, before they reached the sea. The
Journal
urged the establishment of a commission to find another cemetery site.
    At the front door of the diner, after letting himself in, Sully stared at the new banner, trying to draw the words into focus, NEW ENGLAND HOLY DAYS , it seemed to say.
    â€œHoly Days?”
    Sully looked again. “Holly Days,” he corrected.
    â€œNeither one makes much sense, does it,” Cass said, “since this isn’t New England.”
    â€œWell, we’re only thirty miles from Vermont,” Sully reminded her, closing the door behind him and locking it again.
    â€œSeems like more, doesn’t it,” she said. “How come their towns look like postcards?”
    â€œWant me to get the old girl?” Sully said, seeing that Hattie was not in her booth.
    When Cass did not answer, Sully took this for a yes. It was becoming clear to him that gathering the old woman from the apartment in the rear of the diner and getting her settled in her booth for the long morning was one of his duties. Otherwise, Cass was perversely content to let her mother pound on the apartment door with her bony fists. Hattie had been instructed not to try to come into the diner by herself because the passageway between the apartment and the diner had a step and she needed help tonegotiate this, but if the old woman felt that she was being left alone too long in the apartment she felt no compunction about bellowing at the top of her voice and banging on the door until her arthritic hands swelled grotesquely. Then she sat in her booth and chewed Anacin tablets all morning for the pain. “Let her bang,” Cass always advised, but Sully knew it was better to fetch the old woman, make her happy and comfortable in her booth. He also suspected that Cass appreciated his accomplishing this task, that it was a small vacation from the larger burden of her constant