Clark, for his part, looked down at the floor. The carpet was a complex rose tangle pattern and he was able to trace the toe of his scuffed Topsider along the edge of a particularly scarlet bloom. He then pressed his lips together as if sealing an envelope on a letter he might (or might not) choose to send. Finally, he turned his long brown gaze, expectantly, toward the woman showing them to their perspective seats.

       Clark knew his wife and one thing was sure. They would be sitting elsewhere.

       As a rule, Miranda Marrow did not take the first table. This was not entirely her fault. She was descended from a long line of table changers. Her father, Roman Marrow, had been the one to invoke what had become a renowned family adage. When checking into The Ritz Hotel on a family junket to Boston, Roman Morrow had fixed the desk clerk with a level gaze, leaned across the counter from his rangy height, and asserted: "Sir, please show us the second room first. Saves wear and tear on shoe leather." Miranda’s inherited tendency to want the best was something that she had arrived at by both nature and nurture.

       The hostess, however, was accustomed to Miranda and her sort. The restaurant at the inn was set by the ocean and therefore attracted people with expectations. It was just that kind of person who often vied for a view. The hostess did not blink an over made up eye as she turned expertly, and steered them in a different direction. Without a word she brought them elsewhere and placed two oversized folders on the starched white cloth and withdrew. The two sank into their respective seats with not a little sense of gratification. They had finally arrived at their destination. A table by the window.

       The view was splendid. A tumble of huge, craggy cliffs, jagged as Dover, with the frothy sea slapping against the rocks, old friends greeting each other over and over. But Miranda was intent on the enormous carte. The tome-like list was encased in a navy leather binder so fine it seemed as if it might be holding an esteemed Captain’s Log instead of breakfast offerings.

       There were many things to consider. Something called The Isle Of Shoals turned out to be good old Eggs Benedict. The Old Man and The Sea were actually flapjacks with a fried egg on top. The Marginal Way was a poached egg in a cup, The Scotia Princess, a bagel and lox. Miranda’s brow furrowed, baffled by the high flown names and how they correlated to the actual foodstuffs to which they were assigned. It was, she thought, like trying to read and interpret the vanity license plates on people’s cars. What did it all mean?

       Clark gazed out the window at the hard won view. He had not even opened his menu yet. Miranda looked at him and wondered (for the billionth time) what he was thinking about? What was he ever thinking about whenever he stared out windows or off into space?

       "Clark?" Miranda began, letting her enormous menu drop on top of the oversized charger plate before her. "I don’t get it. What does a Hemingway novella have to do with pancakes and an egg? For that matter, who wants an egg sitting on top of their pancakes to begin with? I just don’t get that. I mean, do you put syrup on a fried egg? Do you want salt and pepper on your pancakes? Now an egg on the side...that makes some sense. If you’re, like, what? A lumberjack. Because, let’s face it. An egg and pancakes....that’s two full breakfasts. I mean, you don’t see people ordering a tuna sandwich and a hot dog for lunch unless they have an eating disorder. In any case, what has any of it to do with an old man, the sea, or Hemingway for crying out tears?" She looked at her dining companion with the raised eyebrows of someone expecting a retort.

       Clark turned reluctantly from watching the sea crash against the rocks. "Humm?" He said cocking his head just so.

       Miranda rolled her eyes, lifted her menu, and returned to her appointed task, sighing just audibly enough for no one (but Clark) to hear.

       Miranda and Clark had been together for twenty-five years. In fact, that was why they were sitting across from one another at the table with the excellent view. They were vacationing in Maine as a way of celebrating their anniversary. That was another reason that the view mattered. When you are on a determinedly romantic holiday, what you see outside of your window is supposed to make a difference.

       "I think I’ll have The Sea Witch," Miranda said abruptly shutting her menu and joining her husband in staring out the window. She rested her chin on her fist.

       "The Sea Witch sounds good. What is it?"

       Miranda turned from the window and shrugged. "Isn’t it obvious?"

       Clark dropped his menu, laughed.

       Miranda shook her head. "You didn’t really study the menu, did you? You know, there’s going to be a test on this later. Okay, I’ll help you out just this once. The Sea Witch is hash and eggs. Don’t ask me why. I grock Bergman films more than this menu," she said flicking the cover with her forefinger derisively.

       He nodded, picked up his own menu again, tried to be address its contents with greater concentration. From behind it he added, "You’ll be wanting your eggs well done, right?"

       "Always. What are you going to have?"

       Clark lifted his fork, ran the prongs along the table cloth making four thin tracks as he had seen done in an old Hitchcock movie. He had started to think about movies just after Miranda had made that Bergman comment. He remembered some Bergman flick was set by the ocean. There was a man in a robe babbling Swedish and walking on the shore. Death. Death walking by the sea. Something like that. Was it Seventh Seal? Did Hitchcock ever do a movie by the shore? Must have. He and Miranda used to go to that sort of thought provoking movie. The Great Directors’ Series. Art films with sub titles. Now he preferred action adventure things where Bruce Willis dangled by a thread while shooting bullets from a gun hanging from his nearly severed arm. And Miranda...well, she loved anything depressing with too much dialogue. Miranda could watch the same old girls-getting-over-breast-cancer story again and again.

       He looked up. The thick wooly silence that surrounded him was familiar, like the aura that came before a seizure for an epileptic. He could just barely sense that he had been asked a question that had, as yet, gone unanswered.

       "Humm?" he put out there just in case. "I mean, what?"

       Miranda narrowed her eyes. "Clark," she said as if it were an entire sentence. Waited. "Claaaaark....what do you want?"

       He paused, had to be careful. On trips like this, everything was fraught with meaning, implication. What did he want? It was the sort of trap that he had been known to wander into the way a hiker on the Appalachian Trail might happen into a hole and require help getting out. Miranda was asking one of those questions. The thought provoking variety. The sort that went along with the kind of movie they no longer went to see. Did she expect him to overview their lives, his chosen career, how she looked in a bathing suit, all before his morning coffee?

       "What do I want? Miranda, can’t we just have breakfast? I’m sure we’ll get to one of those mid-life reviews some time this weekend, but does it have to be before I’ve ordered?"

       Miranda closed her eyes briefly. "Clark, I was asking what you wanted...for breakfast?"

       He straightened up, chortled, rubbed at the just greying goatee that he has just recently grown. He bounced back quickly. Clark was nothing if not a quick bounce.

       "Want, well, let’s see. If you’re having eggs I won’t because you like yours well done and I prefer mine runny and one of us will end up with our eggs the wrong way, won’t we?"

       She smiled at her husband, thought him such an odd combination of completely self absorbed and unbelievably considerate. "Right."

       "So, I’m going to go for The Prince Edward Island which is..."

       "...the waffle with Maine blueberries and whipped cream, of course," Miranda was nothing if not a quick study.

       "Check. And that way we can taste each other."

       After the decision was made, they both sat up straighter and waited for the wait person. Time passed and kept passing. It passed in the way that it can when one is on vacation at an expensive inn on the sea and you are waiting for someone to take your order and there is nothing to do but look out the window. The two of them tried to do just that, appreciate the view, be relaxed, laid back. After all, they were on holiday. They knew how they were supposed to behave, be. But time was a-wasting. They wanted their breakfasts. They were not in their own home preparing their own coffee at their own speed preoccupied by setting plates on a table or perusing The New York Times. They were on vacation, held captive in a dining room, trapped into enforced R and R.

       Miranda cleared her throat. She was often the first one in their marriage to call attention to the things that needed improvement. "We should get help," she said seemingly blandly. "Do you think anyone’s seen us?"

       Clark nodded. "Hard to miss us here by the window."

       Miranda leaned across the table. "Maybe that’s it. We’re being punished for asking for the good table," she said in a conspiratorial whisper.

       Clark opened his large brown eyes wider. "Right. Sentenced to life at a table with an excellent view. Shouldn’t the punishment fit the crime?"

       "It should and does. It’s like one of those awful Greek curse of Tantalus thingies. You know, up to your knees in water which recedes whenever he leans down for a sip."

       Clark lifted his fork again, examining the tines, placed it down again. "Trust me. I’m pretty sure that we can leave mythology out of the equation here. This is what I call small town service. Just relax."

       Miranda narrowed her bright blue eyes. There were very few things she detested more than being instructed to ‘relax’. Generally, that particular direction evoked the opposite reaction. It was right up there with Clark’s other suggestion. ‘Trust me’.

       She raised an arm and nearly bellowed, "Excuse me," to the half empty restaurant.

       A number of the other patrons looked up, but not a single member of the wait staff appeared. "Excuse me!" she said again, this time louder to no one in particular.

       Moments later a young woman appeared from behind a swinging door carrying a tray with two glasses of ice water, beads of moisture on the outside of the glasses.

       The waitress was, perhaps, sixteen and quite good at it. She had honey brown hair pulled up into a pony tail, and was able to make the impossible uniform of a bright yellow zip dress covered with a white pinafore look somehow, flattering. Miranda sighed again. This time internally.

       "Hi folks. My name’s Crystal. I’ll be your server this morning. Were you waiting long? Sorry. I was just...I had to...I was in the kitchen. They are so busy back there! You wouldn’t believe it. But trust me..."

       "I’ll try, Crystal," Miranda said cutting her off looking around at the half empty room again and wondering how busy they could be? "But we could really use coffee, please."

       The girl nodded and then sauntered away. She came back, at some length, with two steaming mugs and a broad grin. This seemed somewhat promising. Miranda stirred cream into her coffee, blew once, sipped, then re-lifted her menu, referring to it as if she were conducting a complex piece of music.

       "I’ll have The Sea Witch, with the eggs very, very, very well done. More well done than you would think," she said adding that she wished for many things to appear ‘on the side’ such as ketchup, mustard, butter, jam, the eggs in a cup and the hash on a separate plate, dry rye toast, freshly squeezed orange juice, and extra ice for her glass of water. Please and thank you very much. With that she unfurled her napkin and it billowed to her lap like a small parachute.

       A smile played on Clark’s lips. He enjoyed this show much the way the spouse of a gymnast might watching their partner manage a difficult routine on the balance beam. When it became his turn Clark said simply: "The Prince Edward Island, please."

       Crystal seemed to take it all in, nodding, her pony tail bobbing rhythmically.

       "No problem. One Island and one Witch," she said jotting it down on a small pad which she tucked into a front pocket of her garish yellow outfit before lifting the empty, aluminum, oval, tray and disappearing through the swinging door.

* * *

       They waited a long time to see Crystal again.

       "Where is she?" Miranda said twisting around in her chair.

       Clark shrugged. "Dunno," he said with a yawn. "I could use more coffee, though."

       Miranda shook her head. "Duh? Clark, we could use more...everything. Surely it has not escaped your notice that we have yet to be served any food, sustenance of any kind."

       Clark smiled, reached for his wife’s hand. "Relax. We’re not members of the Donner party..."

       "We’re not members of any party." She stood up, craned her neck.

       Clark regarded his wife. Her neck extended like that, she still seemed so young for someone that he had already been married to for twenty-five years. Miranda had so much energy, drive, ambition, even where breakfast was concerned. He couldn’t help but admire her in the sort of athletic posture that a Golden Retriever might take in the field pointing at potential prey.

       She sat down emphatically, leaned across the table and said in a theatrically loud whisper: "Could you please do something!"

       Clark nodded, raised his left arm and, on cue, Crystal emerged from the kitchen with her tray, this time laden with covered dishes.

       The plated food was laid before them with a flourish. When the cover was removed, Clark’s waffle turned out to be the approximate size of a hubcap covered by a Matterhorn of whipped cream surrounded by a bramble of dark, blueberries. Miranda’s dish revealed a pair of Eggs Benedict starring up at her, the yolks oozing. Miranda looked up at Crystal as if she had been slapped.

       "This is The Isle of Shoals. I distinctly asked for The Sea Witch."

       Crystal looked down at Miranda’s plate. "That is The Sea Witch," she said with conviction and then added, "Isn’t it?"

       Miranda rubbed her forehead. "No, The Sea Witch is the hash and eggs. These are Eggs Benedict."

       "Oh, well, why didn’t you just ask for hash and eggs?"

       "Well, because the menu here calls that particular thing, The Sea Witch."

       The girl turned, picked up a menu from the waiter’s station, squinted at it. "That is so confusing."

       Miranda looked out the window for a second, fancied that she knew how the rocks felt being hit so incessantly by the ocean. "It is confusing, but to be fair, I didn’t write the menu." She lifted her plate toward Crystal and spoke in an imploring tone. "Anyway, can we fix this?"

       "Oh sure. No problem," Crystal said with a smile, her pony tail dancing up and down.

       Miranda looked at the girl, her own aging face combining into a mix of envy and despair. "Okay, but please don’t forget I’d like the eggs really well done. Is that going to be a problem?"

       "Oh, no. No problem," Crystal promised brightly removing the offending dish.

       As she did this, Miranda had an impulse to grab the plate back. Suddenly she feared that she might never see eggs ever again, runny or otherwise.

* * *

       Clark was very busy with his waffle. There was a lot of work to do what with pushing the whipped cream to one side, adding the warm maple syrup, working out each bite so that it would be accompanied with just the right proportion of blueberry to baked batter. Somehow he had forgotten about them tasting each other’s dishes, which was a moot point since Miranda had no dish to taste.

       Every so often, Crystal emerged from the kitchen with a pitcher of juice and refilled their glasses, promising each time that Miranda’s breakfast was on its way. Each time Clark put in a request for "...more blueberries, please." Or "...a touch more coffee, to hot the cup up."

       Miranda was on her third glass of juice when she realized that she was no longer hungry, that she had drunk her breakfast in a way that was most unsatisfactory. She watched her husband chewing, dabbing his mouth with his napkin, stirring his coffee. When Crystal returned again, this time carrying a large iced muffin, and placed it in front of Miranda as compensation. Miranda’s cheek grew quite fuchsia. She pulled her chair out, stood, carefully laid her napkin on the table.

       "I’m sorry," she said in a taut voice. "...but that is no Sea Witch," she stated emphatically and strode out of the dining room.

       Clark was in the middle of his last bite. He swallowed, took a sip of coffee, stood up, stretched. He was half way to the door when he realized that his napkin was still tucked into the waistband of his khaki trousers and flopping about like a loincloth. He pulled it out, walked to the hostess’ podium, dropped it there, and stopped to say a word to the hostess herself.

       "Listen," he began solemnly. "I trust that breakfast won’t be appearing on our bill."

       The hostess countered that the lady’s eggs were on their way, would appear at any moment, and besides the gentleman had already actually had his breakfast. But Clark raised his hand, help it up like a stop sign.

       "The whole thing was..." he paused searching for the right word, "...unfortunate." Then, thinking of his wife’s pink face added for emphasis: "You know, breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal of the day." He looked straight at the woman, earnest. But the hostess just blinked as if she had gotten something irritating in her eye.

       Still, Clark felt somewhat better then. He padded out of the dining room and up the steps. He stopped at the lobby desk to pick up a local paper and check the baseball scores. Before opening it, however, he realized that he might need to use a bathroom soon. Too much coffee, he thought.

       Clark began to think about what they might do with the day. Perhaps he and Miranda might go for a hike on the switchback path overlooking the sea, explore the charming shops at Perkin’s Cove, go for day’s sail, or take a drive and stop at a clam shack for steamers.

       Yes, he told himself. They would have a nice lunch somewhere. The whole day was ahead, the whole weekend. He opened the door of the inn, stepped out into the crisp Maine air to set about to look for his wife.

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