In Springdale Town by Robert Freeman Wexler

with a wooden sailing ship for a base. In the back, a cupboard showcased teapots and vases. I picked up a ceramic rooster with a red-orange body, oversized yellow feet on an oval base painted green, wide mouth, pink tongue, stylized feathers. The signature on the bottom looked like Ortega. The whole thing was about the size of my forearm, from elbow to wrist. There was something loud and fun about it. I’m always looking for things to decorate my writing space.
    “I want that,” said a voice behind me.
    Memory drips, swirls, calcifies. The voice was of the woman I had heard talking to the proprietor. I turned...recognized her...TV show. An artist who teaches art at the college, played by an unfamiliar dark-haired actress. I thought she was good. I liked how she looked, too, and had seen her mostly-naked, having sex with a visiting artist before he left town. And here she was–but which she , actress or character?
    “I do too,” I said.
    “You can’t. I’ve been coming to see it all week. I needed to think about it, visualize where it would go and how it would interact with other objects.” She reached toward the rooster but stopped short of trying to take it from me.
    “Same here. Not the coming to see it all week part, but visualizing its placement. I’d like it for my writing space, on my desk, probably to the left of the computer monitor. Maybe even use it in a short story.”
    “Well, you can’t. I’ve already claimed it and the owner’s my friend. She wouldn’t have sold it to you even if I wasn’t here.”
    She was about my height, with green eyes. Knowing something about her...did I know something about her? “Are you an artist?” Her head dipped, the slightest of nods, a nod that said she was unwilling to move the subject away from her goal. “I thought so–the way you talked about visual space, your determination. What media?”
    “Painter, mostly. Some collage, some illustration. I teach at the college here. But...I need that.” This time she touched the rooster, wrapping fingers over its head.
    “Fine,” I said. “It’s yours. But how about buying me a cup of coffee to make up for my loss?”
    She took the rooster and held it against her breasts. Her body relaxed. “Okay, sure. We can do that. I was going to Frisell’s next anyway. I have to teach class in an hour.”
    Her name (she told me–I knew from the show, too) was Regina Lightner. I told her mine. The place she took me, Frisell’s, was back on Main Street, on the side where I had parked. Before joining her, I returned to my car to put lamp, books, and other purchases in the trunk. At the café, she was still waiting for a cappuccino. I ordered one too. Music played. I recognized the singer but was unfamiliar with the album. I asked the woman who took my order. She said that she thought the owner had picked it. Regina and I sat at a square table, her back to the window, me facing. Across the room, a loud-voiced group had put two tables together. Regina waved to them. An older woman sang part of a show-tune. A man walked past, and the singing woman invited him to join them. An old man told a corny joke and everyone laughed.
    Springdale seemed a friendly place, friendly to those who were already part of it. Not to strangers passing through, but what place is? I might return, spend a night and explore further, go to a bar or two, restaurants. Perhaps I could have a companion.
    We talked. I told Regina about my writing, my frustrations with finding publishers for my stories. I explained how my writing didn’t fit in with magazines that publish fantasy and science fiction or literary journals. At that time, I had only had two publications, in very small literary journals, and my bread story (“Tales of the Golden Legend”) was forthcoming in Back Brain Recluse (except the magazine went under before they could publish my story, which finally appeared years later in The Third Alternative ). I didn’t know that my day’s