It had started to snow on our tiny yellow cottage in Shuffletown as dusk came on and, when the call came from Patricia, there were probably six inches in our backyard--a rarity in that part of the North Carolina Piedmont. I sat on the living room's garish calico shag carpet, leaning against the baseboard heater. Phoebe Snow's It Looks Like Snow played on our Goodwill turntable. Joan and I had opened a bottle of red wine; we figured we were in for the night. Patricia wanted Joan and me to drive to Boone. It was snowing like mad up there, and she and her boyfriend, Dave, were having a party at her house on Poplar Creek Road. They had been our great friends on Oakland Avenue in Charlotte where we'd lived just before and after marrying, and we hadn't seen them since we'd all split for different precincts. Through the phone, I heard jubilation in the background. I told Patricia that we were besieged by snow ourselves and settled in. We were going to sit tight. Joan was fine with that. It made no sense to get on the road. It was nine o'clock. We were alone, happy, drinking wine in the middle of a white-out in Shuffletown.
