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visit, yet Birdie still looked over her shoulder each time she left the house, wondering if the neighbors were watching. She’d taken a chance leaving the children with the Semples—who knew what Charlie might say to them?—but it was already done. She might as well take her time.
    The bus stopped at an intersection; Birdie stepped down and crossed to the five-and-dime. Window signs advertised the specials: charcoal briquettes, roasted cashews, Breck shampoo. Through the glass she saw the long counter of the luncheonette. For the first time in weeks, she felt hungry. She went inside and sat at the counter, ordered coffee and pie.
    “You want ice cream with that?” said the waitress, a thin, stooped woman with dyed hair and deep lines around her mouth. Ice cream cost a quarter more. Birdie reached into her purse and felt the three bills in her wallet.
    “Yes, please,” she said.
    At the other end of the counter, two men in shirtsleeves were finishing their lunch.
    “Whatcha doing for the Fourth?” asked the older one, a fat, bald man in a striped tie.
    “Going to the shore,” said the other. He was young and nice-looking. “I got a trunk full of firecrackers for the boys.”
    The men pushed away their plates. In a moment they would go back to one of the buildings on Canal Street, to do whatever men did in offices. Birdie had only the faintest notion of what her father called “bidness.” Her grandfather had owned a vineyard that produced a sweet, cloudy white wine he called Tidewater Tea. Her father ran the vineyard as a hobby but made his living as a lawyer for the local school district, walking a mile each day to his office in town. Birdie’s mother had never had a job, nor had any white woman she’d ever known.
    Birdie looked out the window. Across the street a girl went into the hardware store. She wore shorts that barely covered her bottom, a man’s shirt knotted at her waist.
    “Will you look at that?” said the young man, the one with the firecrackers.
    The waitress shrugged. “I think a woman ought to dress like a woman, myself.”
    “Those don’t look like any man’s legs to me,” said the young man.
    “They sure don’t,” said the old man. “But still.”
    Men’s talk, Birdie thought: not intended for her ears. Still, it made her wonder. What would they say about her when she got up to leave? She looked down at her baggy skirt and shapeless blouse. Nothing, she realized; they would say nothing at all.
    She hadn’t bought the clothes herself. They had been chosen for her by Ken’s mother, who hadn’t considered Birdie’s summer dresses fit for church or anywhere else. They’d spent a Saturday at Ferman’s department store in Pullman, which sold tractor partsand animal feed as well as clothing. Ken’s mother, enormously fat, wore dresses as big as tablecloths; she seemed to feel Birdie should wear the same size. She picked out skirts that hung nearly to Birdie’s ankles, a billowing shirtwaist dress striped green like a porch awning.
    Once, their first summer in Missouri, Ken had come home to find Birdie weeding the garden in a pair of Bermuda shorts. “What do you think you’re doing?” he’d hissed. It was a small town; there were things the minister’s wife simply couldn’t do. She was not to wear shorts or leave the curtains open during the day or play the radio while she did housework. She could be friendly with the parish women, but not too friendly: she couldn’t invite a particular one over for coffee, for example, or the others would feel snubbed. Above all she couldn’t drink alcohol, not even the homemade wine her father sent at Christmas.
    They lived in the parsonage with Ken’s parents; his father had been Pullman’s pastor until his stroke. He took over his father’s duties; Birdie taught Sunday school and made covered dishes and sang in the choir. Twice a week she listened to Ken preach. My husband, she thought, wishing her old schoolmates were there to see