Bean there, done that

Can love survive in Tritown when everyone is eating beans?

by Sally Cragin

Illustration by Lennie Peterson

At long last, romantic love has come to the Mountain Lair. Hollis the Mountain Man, despite his best intentions, is head over gunga boots in love with Nancy Levesque (formerly Leblanc). And it looks like she's in love with him, too. True, she lives three towns away and has a small and sullen daughter who spends alternate weekends with her Levesque father, but given how love can unreel in Tritown, Hollis is happy and slightly stunned.

Nancy is a large and gregarious woman with a tumble of dark red hair. She works as a medical secretary. On her weekends with Hollis, she "goes country" and wears one of his faded flannel shirts in the morning. As for Hollis, he walks around in a haze of good feelings and is beginning to think that his three-day-a-week shift as a Tri'd 'n` Tru Chips truck driver might not be enough. Other changes include: finally repairing the porch step and making a start at replacing the porch floor. There was never any reason to do this before, he explains to Delia Ellis Bell the Partial Yankee (there was a questionable great-great-grandmother) one afternoon at Happy's Coffee & Qwik-Stop.

"You mean, there was never anyone to do this for," she supplies tartly.

Hollis puts down his mug.

"Yeah," he says, with wonder in his voice. "That's exactly it. Most of the time I walk around feeling like I couldn't jam a yardstick into a box of pingpong balls without getting it hooked on something. But these days, even though I won't see her till the weekend, I'm really happy."

Delia's expression is wary but smug. "That's great!" she says in her most encouraging voice. "That's what it's all about!"

Hollis presses his index finger (somewhat less-grubby these days, though he still changes his own oil) into the crumbs on the plate. He could use another doughnut, but Nancy has persuaded him to come in for a physical. And he fears for his cholesterol level. He's lasted this long on doughnuts, burgers, chips, and homebrew. But then, it's not like anyone (well, besides Delia anyway) even cared about his cholesterol numbers.

MEANWHILE, DOWN AT All Faiths, Tritown's resident church (informally known as the Presby-Congo-Metho-Baps), Lorencz the Hermit is the new sexton and living in the tiny belltower apartment. For someone who's spent the better part of the '90s in a burnt-out school bus in the woods behind the Mountain Lair, the two modest rooms are a palace. He was initially confused by his new title ("Sexton" = "ton" of "sex"?), but his more pedestrian duties have been explained to him by various members of the vestry. He's diligent about checking the furnace, closing windows, and occasionally dragging a damp and dusty rag-mop along the creaky wooden floor.

True, there are more people coming and going here than ever ventured into the woods. Occasionally his Sunday-morning slumber is shaken by the wheezing stops of the pipe-organ; but he is content, though it did take a couple of Sundays to realize that "his balcony" was actually the choir loft. On icy mornings, he even remembers to shake some sand and salt on the church steps, and lately he's found small offerings (an experimental bean casserole, a plate of Snickerdoodles) outside his battered door. No one seems to expect him to attend services, however, and he still enjoys the occasional jaunt down the Post Road for a stop at the Rod 'n` Reel club.

The biggest difference in his life, however, is the amount of sunlight he gets, and he's still not sure how to assess its impact. Deep in the woods, where the century-old maples made a thick canopy and upstart hemlock and white pine swished their fragrant branches against his bus windows, he lived in a chrysalis of dim and diffuse light. In years past, days might pass without him seeing his shadow, and now he compares himself with the famous groundhog, Punxatawny Phil. Golden sunbeams slanting through the back wall windows wake him every morning, and he is actually getting a tan (hardly visible beneath the long beard and bushy eyebrows, but still . . .).

"Sunlight -- good," he mutters to himself, turning over in his cot. Later in the day when the church is silent, and parishioners are at work or school, he will steal down to the first floor and curl up on the fifth pew from the front on the bride's side. The battered 1984 Hymnal is just soft enough for his hard little head.

HASKY AND $ERENA TARBOX are easing into married life as if it were a pair of old, leaky, rubber rain boots. They are installed on the upper floor of $erena's family double-decker, and are endeavoring to Be Together in a way that their long (since high school) courtship never allowed. Both of them are finding that accommodation is very different in the day-to-day when the day-to-day is continuous. It took Hasky several weeks to stop taking the turnoff to the Post Road and the Tarbox Automotive ("Collisions? A Specialty"), his ancestral home. Home is now closer to the town center, where the deckers are spaced as evenly as pickets in a fence.

And $erena is getting tired of fending off curious and overly solicitous glances and comments from her relatives.

"Why does everyone think I was pregnant before we got married?" she complains to Hasky one night. She places a dish of marinated green beans in front of him and takes her place, unfolding a cloth napkin and laying it on her lap. At least the table looks nice -- a vase holds Hasky's Valentine's Day present, a mixed bouquet of red roses. She would have preferred a few white roses as well, but the thought was sweet -- and that's only the second time he's gotten her flowers. As for Hasky, he still thinks it's just plain weird that they have to use cloth napkins when a paper towel would do just fine. But he doesn't say anything. He's learned from a long apprenticeship in the family business that you might as well leave the strange knocks, pings, and ka-changs, you hear in an engine, alone. Unless there's smoke or flames or something obvious.

"Dunno, hon," he says, picking up his fork. The dish looks delicious enough, but this is the third time they've had beans this week. (All the All Faiths regulars are auditioning their dishes in preparation for the seventeen-bean supper, which will be the culmination of the fund drive.)

After a few bites, he looks up with a start. "You're not, are you?"

$erena is startled. She too is beginning to tire of beans. How are they going to persuade people to come when everyone's been eating beans for weeks? Twisting her wedding ring, she decides how to answer his question.

Marinated Green Bean Salad

Snap ends off a bunch of green beans, cut in smaller pieces, and steam. Drizzle with a mixture of oil, vinegar, crushed garlic, grated ginger, and salt and pepper. Add small pieces of broiled red pepper for color. Marinate overnight (don't be impatient!) in a covered dish in the refrigerator.

Sally Cragin sends a big-brimmed tip o' the hat to Harvard man Pete Greelish who knows his text from his texte.

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