BILLIE & LESTERBILLIE - She’s seen it all but believes in the goodness of (most) people at base. Believes that to be able to provide for one's family is both a duty and a privilege. Believes that life is to be enjoyed, but that there must be limits, and that any transgression of these limits will ultimately result in more problems and pain than whatever pleasure and rewards the transgression initially provides. Complementing this last belief is the reserve of anger that Billie maintains for those she terms “users”: those who, having already transgressed the limits to life's enjoyment themselves, take advantage of the goodness and naïveté of others in an attempt to escape having to pay the price of their transgressions themselves. Oldest of seven children, two of whom died as infants, Billie has spent her entire life in Fairvale. Had a few romances before Lester, but refused to commit herself without a mutual and equal commitment from her partner; something she was unable to find until meeting Lester, when she did.
LESTER- A big man. Self-confident. Knows his measure and feels he can go up against anyone should trouble come; that he is the equal of any man. Hard worker. Self-starter. Born in Mississippi, oldest of eleven children. His earliest memories are of helping out around the house. Went to school long enough to learn how to read and write, and made sure he never forgot. Started working in the fields along side his parents when he was ten. He kept it up until the day, not long after his fifteenth birthday, when his closest friend, a young man three years his senior, was lynched by a drunken mob. Pausing long enough only to say good-bye to his family, Lester left and vowed never to return. Although he has sent a portion of his earnings, whatever he could afford (sometimes more) back home to that fluctuating portion of his family that has remained there, Lester kept good to his vow and never returned up to now and seems quite unlikely to do so before he dies, and to make sure he won't go there even after, he has, together with Billie, purchased a burial plot in the Fairvale cemetery.
Lester worked just about any and every job that was available. Being a hard worker who kept to himself, he was appreciated by his employers and respected by his co-workers. He nonetheless was consistently restless and ill at ease, and sooner or later succumbed to the urge to move on. New York, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and more; he found a place in each community, but could never manage to settle down. Until he met Billie.
Traveling to Chicago from New York, Lester stopped in Fairvale to get some dinner, planning to drive on through the night. After eating he suddenly realized he was exhausted and decided to put up for the night in the hotel where Billie worked a variety of jobs, including, that night, that of bar-maid at the hotel bar where Lester decided he needed to spend some solid down time. The moment they met, both Lester and Billie immediately recognized that there was something there, hovering in the air, incandescent, between them, and neither wanted to waste any time finding out how good that something was. The next day Lester asked for and received a position at the hotel and from that moment on he and Billie began building the foundation for their life together, each looking for and finding in the other that which was lacking in their individual selves, and in the process becoming a force to be reckoned with.
With each passing year the strength of their bond grew. Children came and then success, as the couple took over first the management, and then, finally, the ownership, of the hotel bar where they had first laid eyes on each other; dubbing it the I'll Get By Bar & Grill. Billie and Lester each take it for granted that, simply put, life is hard work. Each goes about their day not with resignation, but with matter-of-factness. The couple is at the tail end of their child rearing days. Their daughter, Elise, is 22 and a graduate student at a liberal arts college. Their son, Burghardt, 16, is a studious (some would say overly studious) high school senior currently in the process of choosing his future alma mater. They are looking forward to their retirement together.
While they're not sure exactly what to make of his ideas, both Billie and Lester love his music and look forward to Saturday nights, when the Fairvale cognoscenti congregate at the I'll Get By to participate in the moment when Farid and his band unleash their unique brand of mystical jazz.