“Thought maybe you could use some company,” Helen said through the screen door.

Lydia opened the door to let her friend in. “I’ll put on some coffee,” she said.

Helen Vernon was a few years older than Lydia but looked ten years younger. Chunky, with blond hair, rosy cheeks and a mouth that was too big for her face. She and Lydia had been friends since grammar school, and she was the only friend Lydia still had who came out to visit. Helen sat at the table while Lydia took a coffee maker out from one of the bottom cabinets. As far as Jack was concerned the coffee maker had broken months ago-at least that’s what she told him. Since then the only coffee she’d been serving him was an instant brand that tasted like watered-down mud, but when he wasn’t around she made a nice French roast for herself.

After she started the coffee brewing, she joined her friend at the table and offered a cigarette. Helen accepted and both women lit up. They sat silently for a minute as they inhaled deeply on their cigarettes and sent smoke spiraling up between them.

“I’m just so damn tired of this,” Lydia said.

Helen blew a stream of smoke out from the corner of her wide mouth. “You talk more to Jack about finding a real job?”

“Yeah, I talked to him until I was blue in the face.” She laughed bitterly, her thin lips curling with spite. “The damn fool has his contract. He’s out there saving the world everyday, don’cha know?”

“That’s what he says to you?”

“Exact words.”

The coffee had finished brewing. Lydia got up and poured two cups. She drank hers black while Helen filled hers a third of the way with milk and added several tea-spoons of sugar. Her eyes looked thoughtful as she sipped her coffee between drags of her cigarette.