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BERTRAND RUSSELL, The Conquest of Happiness

I didn’t see it at first, sitting between the cash register and a stack of order pads It , while I spent another day ofof boredom inside Gracewell’s Diner

There were just two of us left to lock up tonight I was hovering beside the register, druernails on the countertop, while Millie, lided around the diner and sang into the push broom like it was a er not-so-extraordinaire — had stayed hoover

The tables stood resolutely in rows, flanked by straight-backed, burgundy chairs and the occasional rubber plant The door was locked, the lights were dimmed, and thebooths were clean

I was trying not to listen to Millie destroy Adele when I noticed it: the jar of honey I picked it up and studied it

“I think I’-ht was the faint British accent, but that’s only because she was British “I can hit that high note now!”

“Big i up

The jar was sold swayed lazily as I tilted it back and forth A fraying square of cloth covered the lid and, instead of a label, a thin velvet ribbon encircled thein an elaborate bow It was black

Homemade? Weird I didn’t know anybody in Cedar Hill who made their own honey, and I knew almost everyone in Cedar Hill It was just that kind of place — a little pocket on the outskirts of Chicago, where everybody knows everybody else’s business; where nobody forgives and nobody forgets I knew all about that After what happened with my dad, I beca to you like a big red warning on your forehead

Millie hit the last note of her song with ear-splitting vigor, then skipped behind the counter and stashed the brooo?”

“Where did this come from?” I balanced the jar of honey on the palm of my hand and held it out

She shrugged “Dunno It was here when my shift started”

I looked at her through the golden prisht?”

Millie rearranged her features into a classic I-don’t-really-care-about-this-topic-of-conversation look “The honey? Not really”

“It’s homemade,” I said

“Yeah, I figured” She pulled her eyebrows together and reached out to touch the glass “The ribbon is kind of odd Maybe a customer left it as a tip?”

“What kind of customer tips with pots of honey?”

Millie gasped, her face lighting up “Did you …” She breathed in dramatically “By any chance …” She exhaled “Serve …”

I leaned forward in anticipation

“… a little yellow bear …”

I can’t believe I fell for it

“… called Winnie-the-Pooh today?”

Her laughter set led — hat drew o At school ould always find ourselves laughing at the saling inappropriately when so, nonsensical conversations and discussing ridiculous hypothetical situations — that brought us together Back then I didn’t knoould be the only friendship that would survive what happened to o, but it didn’t matter anymore because Millie was the best friend I’d ever have, and the only one I really needed

We laughed all the way through closing, until ere outside in the balht air

Located on the corner of Foster and Oak, the diner was amade from faded brick It was perfectly symmetrical, its squareness reflected in the boxy s that do lot that surrounded it on all sides Along the overhanging roof, a scrawling “Gracewell’s” sign was half-illuminated by streetlaht across the street, the old library looht sky, half-hidden by a line of neatly clipped trees that continued west past the general post office and on down the sidewalk

I was still holding the well-dressed pot of honey as we crossed the e lot It’s not like anyone would care, I toldhis self-induced headache, there was no one official around to claim it I’d only done what any jaded, underpaid employee would do in my situation — claimed a freebie that I had no i triumphant because of it

“So I’ve been thinking” Millie slowed her pace to match mine

“Be careful,” I teased her

“Maybe I should take the honey”

“Finders keepers,” I sang

“Sophie, Sophie, Sophie” She put her arm around my shoulder and pulled ht, but while Millie was curvy in all the right places, I was boy-skinny and chiph I had inherited his di Millie squished her cheek up against mine, as if to remind me of that I felt her smile “My best friend in the whole world, ever Oh, how dull would my life be without you in it? The stars wouldn’t shine half as bright, the moon would be but a shadow of its former self The floould wither and — ”