I placed The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers on the bar. A young man came up next to me to order a beer. He noticed the heft of the book and asked why I was reading it. I said that people I knew and others had recommended it. He asked if he could take a picture of the spine. I consented to the strange request. He looked closer at the novel and said that he did not know the book but had heard of the author. After the briefest debate with myself, I told him that W.E.B. Du Bois had not written it. “Oh,” he said.

She placed a book on the bar as she settled on the stool next to me. She started to read, and I asked what she was reading. She showed me the cover. It was Volume II of a title I did not recognize. She said that it was a Chinese classic. She told me from what dynasty, but I confessed I never knew one Chinese era from another. I let her try to read over the din of the bar’s Trivia Night. Ten minutes later she indicated that she wanted to show me something and held out her right arm. On the inside upper part was a beautiful tattoo of a beautiful woman. She then turned back to the book’s cover and pointed out a figure. “It’s her,” she said. I did not know how to respond. She then leaned closer and almost whispered, “It cost me $500.” I found this unsettlingly intimate. I left a bit later and politely, but not sincerely, said to her, “I hope I see you again.”

Our lunch companions had both been married before. When asked how they had met, the charming Cliff said that they had been neighbors in Scarsdale. He continued that after they married they moved to Greenwich. I said, “Ah, you were run out of Scarsdale.” With his winning smile, Cliff said, “Something like that.” And I thought a twofer. Two commandments broken in one relationship. But this could not have been because they both regularly attended an Episcopal church.

Joan at lunch said that she refused to eat with a Trump supporter. The spouse mentioned that the bubbly Pat at breakfast had told us for no particular reason that she loved Trump. Joan was shocked when she learned that, but we left shortly afterwards so we don’t know how that story continues.

We had lunch with Sam in a Connecticut suburb. He loved going to plays in New York City, taking the train in and catching matinees. He also was a museum goer, and we discussed recent plays and exhibits. He used the subways to get around the city although most of his suburban compatriots were afraid of those trains. He said that after lunch he was driving to a summer house that had been in his wife’s family for 96 years. The house was not hooked up for electricity but had solar power and a generator. Outhouses had been used for most of its history. He said that with his four kids he had been required to dig a new hole every month. Without traffic, he said that it took about an hour to get there. He got in the left lane, he continued, and drove 85 mph all the way. He said that a state trooper had told them that they no longer gave speeding tickets, so he was not concerned. His children, however, want him to take the train and give up driving. He is 97. He said he enjoyed life and wanted to live to 110.