When I wasn’t volunteering or trying to better someone else’s life, I’d come home and think about my long-term prospects. One of them was still the letter. The more time that passed, the more absurd it looked—making a day trip out of the city to confront a stranger. But it happened to be the weekend, and the weather was on my side. Late October, a brilliant fall day, and winter still a way off. It would be invigorating to be out on Long Island in farm country, passing stands that sold apples, squash, and pumpkins. Fall foliage was in color and this would be a chance to see the leaves. Every year when the newspaper mapped the best routes, I always considered driving north but I never did. I was waiting for the right person to go with me.
I wouldn’t be far from Mary Alice. I could visit. Her wardrobe had grown like kudzu, now filling her closet and the empty one that had been her husband’s. Reconciliation didn’t look like an option. She sent me emails about her wearying trips to the city to negotiate divorce terms with her lawyer.
So there I was in a rented Honda Accord in the parking lot of a deli in East Quogue, eating a decent tuna salad sandwich with lettuce and tomato on whole wheat. Just enough mayo, a little bit of sweet green relish. My Arizona peach iced tea was balanced between my knees. I didn’t drive for two and a half hours for the tuna, though.
I drove there because I hoped that although Luke Edmond didn’t have a phone he’d be home and answer his door.
Once I got off the highway, I continued along small rutted roads that could have been lifted out of the rolling plains of the Midwest. I was only a couple of hours outside the city, but this was a sparsely populated area with few cars around—farm country that off-season is blue collar, not no collar. From a map that the attendant at the gas station made for me, it looked as though Luke’s house was a couple of miles down a small dirt road. I passed a farm with an APPLES FOR SALE sign, and bought a bag.
The road curved past small, isolated houses and I followed it until I came to a two-story white wooden New England–style farmhouse with a small front porch that had two red wooden rockers on it. It sat on an open expanse of land with tall trees on the perimeter. There were no other houses around it. No one seemed to be around.
The house looked like it was lifted from a stage set for Our Town. I saw a beat-up black pickup truck when I went around to the side of the house. I walked up the creaky steps to the front door and knocked. No answer. I knocked again and then rang the bell. I peered through the window. No sign of movement or anyone around. It was dark inside. I could barely make out a striped sofa and a couple of thick club chairs. Hard to imagine this was just a few miles from multimillion-dollar Hamptons weekend homes. This house was what would be politely described as a tear-downer.
I gave up and walked around to the back, hoping a giant pit bull wouldn’t charge out and clamp me in its jaws. There was a separate building in the back that looked like it had once been a barn. Now there were large sliding doors and big windows on two sides. I walked over and looked inside. Almost empty except for a row of paintings propped up against a wall and a long industrial table with metal boxes on top of it. I stared at one painting in particular. It was done in vibrant blues, greens, and purples. I thought of leaving a note, but if he was never there to answer the phone, why would he be there to see the note?
I was about to get back into the car when I looked off into the distance. The sun was in my eyes, and I wasn’t certain, but it looked like someone was out in the field behind the house. I walked back there and realized there was a figure in front of something large and rectangular. I got closer and saw that it was a canvas. I thought about calling out to him to let him know I was there before I moved in on him. When I was about fifteen feet away, I stopped.
“Hello…excuse me, are you Luke?” There was a silence for a few seconds.
“Luke who?” he said finally, without turning.
“Edmond?”
“Does he owe you money?”
“No.”
“Then I’m Luke Edmond.”
He turned and looked at me inquiringly for a few brief seconds before he went back to his canvas, as if that settled that. I studied him as quickly as he studied me. Straight blond, streaked hair, razor cut, parted on the side. It fell in two long sections, each ending at the edge of his unshaven jaw. The back was a few inches longer. A pierced ear with a small gold hoop earring. Tanned skin, light green eyes. Despite the chill, all he had on was a denim shirt over jeans. He was barefoot.
I stood, watching him, assuming he had to finish a particular section and after he did he’d turn back to me to find out why I was there. But no, he seemed to block me out entirely. Finally, annoyed, I walked closer.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m here?” I was unable to hide the trace of annoyance in my voice.
“Nope.”
“I’ll tell you why,” I said, ignoring his answer, “and then I’ll get into my car and you can keep on painting.” He turned around for a second glance before turning back to the canvas.
“I found a letter that you wrote—actually, the letter that you wrote for your friend Jordan. I found it in a taxi. And, well, even though now I find it hard to believe…you did a really fine job of writing it. I mean, who ever writes love letters these days? And so here I am. I tracked you down.” My outburst was followed by another long, irritating pause.
“So now what?” he said, finally.
“Now what?” I repeated in a low, controlled voice. I had gone to the trouble of taking off an entire day, standing in line for half an hour to rent a car at Avis, driving two and a half hours by myself out to Nowheresville, Long Island, to track down an artist who wrote a letter that made me swoon, only to find out he had an annoying attitude, that in real life he clearly preferred silence to speech, and now he was completely cold to the entire story, not to mention me.
“Now I’m getting back into my car and driving the whole way back to Manhattan. Goodbye, and I truly hope we never meet again.”
With that, he turned around and stared. “You are some little piece of work,” he said, with the barest hint of a smile. He looked me over and his eyes fixed on my boots. Then his whole expression changed. He got off the stool and walked closer, then stopped, studying them. Finally, he knelt at my feet, pulling up the leg of my jeans.
“Hey, what do—”
He whistled softly. “Where did you get these?”
I had several pairs of cowboy boots, but these were my favorite. They were decorated with flowers and vintage guns. I hate guns, but I loved the way they looked on the boots.
“Santa Fe. I had them made. You like them?”
He didn’t answer and shook his head in disbelief. “Take them off.”
“Why?” I shook my head, uncertainly.
He didn’t answer again, as he stared, running his fingers along the colored stitching. Finally, I sat down and tugged one off, and then the other, and he took them and turned them over, studying the soles, the heels, and the design on the leather. He put one down on the ground, then the other, and looked at them. Finally, he stood.
“Can I borrow them?”
“What?”
He repeated the question patiently.
“I can’t go home barefoot.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s fifty degrees, and I live in the middle of Manhattan.”
He nodded. “Can you send them to me, then?”
“What are you going to do with them?” I asked, like a nervous parent who is asked to lend her child to someone.
“Paint them,” he said, as though it should have been obvious.
“I don’t think so. They cost me a fortune.”
No reaction as he stared back at me and fixed his eyes on the boots again. He shrugged and turned, walking back toward the house. Something about his gait struck me as odd. It was slow and deliberate. I thought he was pretending at first, and then I saw that he wasn’t. He walked with his head down so that his hair fell forward, almost hiding his face. I followed him, heading to my car.
He stopped at the front door of his house and leaned his arm up against the door. “Goodbye, Miss Cowboy Boots.”
I met his eyes for a long minute, then squeezed mine shut. “Okay, I’ll send them…if you promise to send them back.”
“I will,” he said, holding my gaze.
I got into my car and stuck my arm out to wave goodbye. As I turned on the motor, he held up his hand to stop me. He came over and leaned into the window. Then I realized why his gait was strange. He had a limp.
“It’s not that I’m unsociable or anything,” he said, softly. “It’s just that I don’t have any…well…anything at all to eat or drink in the house, so…” He didn’t finish the sentence. His awkwardness was like a moat around him.
“What are you going to eat?”
He shrugged. “I’m not. No money until tomorrow or the next day.”
I reached into the back seat for the bag of apples and handed it to him through the window. “Here, I wouldn’t want you to starve.” He took the bag with a shy smile, then walked back toward the house.