The tables, so to speak, are turned - Gloria waits offstage

Within our own atmospheres the planets and constellations need not actually collide to produce shock waves.  A square here, a conjunct there and one is giving another the stink eye while we're left holding the exploding dye pack of plans gone shockingly awry.  If those drifting orbs have taught us anything it is how to remain limber.  A facile mind is money in the bank.

Mr. Apotienne arrived at the tea shop on a blustery yet bright Tuesday, allowed time for his eyes to adjust to the more subtle interior light and stepped toward his usual table, only to find it claimed.  It was occupied, filled with chatter and, had he been feeling more charitable, pleasingly uninhibited laughter from a quartet of women whose tousled hair and wind-pinked cheeks he'd come to associate with Billington's Cove.  Wanting above all else to keep from looking like a trapped ferret ready to gnaw off his own foot rather than sit at another table, The Reading Man retreated into his breath and quieted his grumbling mind and clanging heart.

Plan B, he thought, one must always have a Plan B.  In a general way, The Reading Man was a highly adaptable creature, as unlikely to start a fracas as a clam would be to grow legs.  As the women looked up to see him there, they smiled and nodded greetings for they all recognized him from his coastal rambles and his steadfast presence near Gloria's kitchen.  "Oh, please," said the one whose name he thought was Nancy, "we still have room here."  To prove it, they all moved, for a moment in the wrong directions, to make space for him among them.  He was about to arrange his thank you, but no, face and began edging to an empty table when maybe-Nancy said, "We'll even be quiet if you want to read.  It would be a treat for us.  Do say yes."  Though he didn't shift his eyes, his mind looked skyward and silently said, not this, not today, and in equal silence the answer came.  Yes, this, today.

From his reservoir of good manners aided by panic now somewhat stilled, he answered that he would find that delightful and thanked them each with fleeting eye contact.  The one he thought might be Ruth had a wariness in her glance that didn't escape him.  I shall have to be very alert, he thought, no falling asleep at my post this morning. I shall be, for this time, the perfect stranger, in spite of his certainty that they gossiped about him regularly and wanted to turn over the rocks under which, they assumed, he kept himself hidden.