Write me a Letter

Will started panicking. ”While these two were taking in the sights I was keeping my eyes wide open on our backs the whole time, except for when the pastrami came.”
    ”And when you were buying ladies drinks they probably had too many of already,” said Guess Who, and it wasn’t me, Marlon, Will, the voice of Christmas past, or the waiter, who chanced by then to see if we wanted more of anything. Just the bill, please, I told him. And if the above quiz proved too difficult for you, try figuring out who he presented the bill to when he returned; I was afraid to look at the back of it in case he’d scribbled his phone number down for me. The damn thing was useless for expense purposes as it had both the name and the address of the donut joint on it, unlike the one from Ben’s; I’d gone to considerable pains to hide from any potential prying eyes the fact that we three had made a side trip out of New York and I wasn’t about to blow Will’s whereabouts that stupidly. Besides, I had a drawerful of old restaurant bills at home I could have a look through for a suitable replacement.
    After I’d settled up, we all hopped le metro back to Mrs. Leduc’s. Will wanted us to meet her, for one thing, and I had a little business left to finish up with Will. The snowman was still there, but someone had knocked his head off. The entryway to Mrs. Leduc’s was littered with boots, overshoes, rubber boots, shoes, even a snow shovel, for the path, I guessed; we all added our footware to the clutter before Will led us into the front room. On the way he shouted out back, ”Fran! I’m home!”
    After a minute Fran, in plaid trousers, a hand-knitted — looking heavy red sweater, and woolly slippers fashioned to look like pink bunny rabbits, came in to join us. Despite her name, her ancestry was Scottish and Irish, she informed us as she bustled around making us comfortable. Ignoring my protests that we could only stay a minute, she insisted we all take our coats off, which we did, then she whisked them off to the coatrack by the front door, then went out to the kitchen to heat up the pea soup, I guessed. The kids parked themselves in a huge old sofa, me beside them in an old, high-backed armchair with an antimacassar even. Then Will said, ”Back in a minute,” and he took himself off, leaving us to twiddle our thumbs and feast on the visuals, of which I will only mention six porcelain cats in descending sizes sitting in the fireplace, a draft excluder in the form of a snake stretched along the bottom of the front bay window, and a great deal of contemporary artwork hung on the walls, half of which were complete jig-saw puzzles that had been glued on to a backing and then framed, the other half paint-by-number landscapes of Canada in autumn. The kids started giggling and pointing out various high spots of decor to each other; I told them to can it.
    Will came back then, beckoned me into the hall, looked nervously over his shoulder, and handed me a well-stuffed envelope. I tucked it in a back pocket without looking inside.
    ”For you, pal,” he whispered. ”Least I can do.”
    ” Merci beaucoup ,” I whispered back, giving him a pat on the head as he led the way into the living room again. The kids were still giggling.
    ”What’s so funny?” Will wanted to know.
    ”Aw, just something he said,” the twerp lied. ”What were you two doing, helping Fran bake a cake?”
    ”Will had a little surprise for me, more a souvenir, really,” I lied. ‘A program from the game last night, I forgot to get one.” If the envelope did turn out to contain a folded up Les Canadiens program from the game last night, or any night, I thought, Nome, Alaska, would not be far enough for Will; Mars would not be far enough.
    Mrs. Leduc, flushed and a little excited to have unexpected guests, I suppose, returned then, carefully pushing a well-laden serving cart in front of her. Will immediately offered to help but was waved off. She poured us all tea in fluted blue teacups with gilt handles, then insisted we all try a slice of her Cinderella cake, whatever that was. Then she handed us all dainty embroidered napkins for us to dab our lips with. The kids looked at each other again.
    ”It is a pleasure, Mrs. Leduc, to be offered tea that is not only served correctly, but in such a lovely old service,” I said. ”Out in the jungle where we come from, if someone dropped in without warning, like we did, they’d be lucky to get warm instant