Page 17 of Upstate

“I’ve fallen asleep reading a few times,” I admitted, smoothing the quilt I kept tucked over the mattress. “I’ve never stayed overnight, though.”

“Is this where you bring all your lovers, then?” The bedsprings squeaked as you sat down, patting the place beside you.

You were teasing, of course, but I answered in all seriousness. “You’re my first real lover, Evelyn. My first and only.”

“I know, baby.” You drew me close and kissed me, deep and soft. “I know.”

Oh, how we used to make love! That’s something you’ll never forget, will you? Our bodies were young and supple then, our moves innovative, our appetites insatiable. The years do wear away that sharp pang, don’t they? Familiarity dulled our hunger and routine replaced innovation long ago, but I swear, Evelyn, as I look up from this letter I’m writing to see you nodding off in your wingback chair by the kitchen fire, you’re as beautiful to me at eighty-six as you were at twenty-seven.

“I’d live here always if I could,” I murmured. We were naked in bed, eating the peaches I’d packed, the juice sticky on our chins.

“Why don’t you?” You waved an arm. “It must be for sale.”

“I did ask about it, once. The savings and loan in Schuywich took back the deed after the last owners absconded during the Depression after borrowing against the house. The bank wants five thousand dollars for it.”

“Five thousand?” You propped yourself up on an elbow. “That’s not so much for a house and a barn on all this land.”

“It’s four thousand five hundred more than I have,” I laughed. “Besides, the savings and loan doesn’t give mortgages to unmarried women.”

You traced a peach-sticky fingertip from my chin to my navel, then spread your hand across my hip and rolled me closer. “Think they’d sell it to me for cash?”

“Sell it to you?” I figured you were playing pretend. “What would you want with this old place?”

“Well, it would make a great subject for a column.”

“Don’t tease me like that, it isn’t nice.” I pushed your hand away and sat up in bed. “You know you’d never leave Manhattan.”

“Why not?” You sat up, too. “I’m a writer, Hazel. It doesn’t matter where I live, as long as there’s a post office where I can mail my pages. Besides, it’s not like I’m some Park Avenue debutante. I grew up in a rented shack next to a quarry in Vermont with a mother who let her kids go hungry while she drank and a piece-of-shit father who treated us like punching bags.”

“I’m sorry, Evelyn,” I said, taking your hand. “You never told me that.”

“I don’t like dwelling on the past, but the truth is, I only finished high school because one of my teachers took me in senior year. I paid my way through Bennington by washing dishes and graduated college as poor as when I started. The marines billeted us women in a reeking old barrack at Camp Parrish. Our lodgings in Hawaii were pretty nice, I’ll admit, but believe me, the navy ship to Korea was no ocean cruise. This house is a palace compared to some of the places I’ve called home.”

“But wouldn’t you miss city life?”

“There’s a lot I like about living in Manhattan, but every time I walk past the House of Detention, I think about the women rotting away in there just because they’re lesbians. The cops and social workers in Greenwich Village target us for simply wearing pants. In a small town, though, I wouldn’t be clocked as a dyke for my style. I’d just be that eccentric lady who prefers slacks.”

I hadn’t been aware of all that when I visited you, but then again, such things had never been my concern. I didn’t fit the image people carried in their minds of what a lesbian looked like. You did, though—if someone knew what to look for.

“Okay, Evelyn, maybe you are serious about leaving the city, but why in the world would you want to move to a village in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York?”

“Why wouldn’t I, if it meant being with the woman I love?”

I blinked. “You love me?”

“Of course I do, silly.” You unfurled my fingers and placed a soft kiss in the center of my palm. “What do you think I’m doing here?”

Goodnight, my darling, with all my love, Hazel

Chapter 10

At nine o’clock the next morning, a pickup truck emblazoned with the emblem of the agricultural extension rolls up my driveway. The man who gets out is younger than I expected, late twenties or early thirties, I guess. The only hint of a uniform is the logo embroidered on his polo shirt. Otherwise, in his cargo pants and red-laced boots and floppy sunhat, he could pass for a lanky long-distance hiker who’s wandered off the Appalachian Trail.

“You must be Audrey Beacon. I’m Sam Rensselaer.” He removes sunglasses that dangle from a string around his neck, revealing a tanned face with a square jaw and architectural cheekbones. His good looks catch me off guard, like when handsome Hollywood actors pretend to be beat cops. “I’m here to review your boundary.”

“Yeah, hi.” With my unwashed hair and no-makeup face, there’s zero chance of mistaking me for an actress playing a part. “Thanks so much for coming.”

“Sure thing.” Sam takes a moment to look around. “Fantastic place you’ve got here. What’s with the sign, ‘Red Barn Books’?”