Jim. In her bones and in her blood. She would tell them of how it had all begun, of the challenge of keeping the affair a secret, of the places she and Jim had gone to be together. And later, when she was teaching in the public schools, of how they would meet in motels and hotels in anonymous towns and cities. She remembered — indeed, fed off of— the thrill of driving to a place she had never been before, checking into a hotel, and then finding Jim, as they had agreed, in the bar at a prearranged time. And later still, of how she had interviewed at Kidd and surprised Jim with the news, and how she saw him then every day for three years until finally he'd left to go to Wisconsin, after which they'd had to resume their intermittent rendezvous. Nora and Harrison and Bridget and the others would remember that Jim had been married. And when they learned that he still was, would they then want to know how Agnes had lived with this fact all these years? Twenty-six years, to be precise?
She would answer their questions with a question: Why was a marriage the only possible happy ending?
(No, she wouldn't discuss this, she realized suddenly. This was Bridget's wedding, after all.)
But still. Agnes would like to ask what they thought was more real, the living of a love affair or the imagining of it? Wasn't it more delicious to engage in a transcendental passion than to endure the messy and boring mechanics of actual marriage? In Agnes's ideal scenario, she and Jim would continue to meet in anonymous rooms in anonymous hotels. Agnes had little desire to be a wife. Rather, she wanted to be the steady mistress. If only she could be certain that the affair would last, that Jim would be there on a consistent basis.
Agnes desired certitude.
Maybe it was not entirely true that Agnes would not have chosen marriage had she been given the opportunity. The difficulty was that Jim sometimes had doubts. He was occasionally overcome by guilt. He wrestled with moral quandaries. That struggle kept him apart from Agnes, usually for months, occasionally for years.
Agnes would ask another question then. If a man didn't have the courage of his convictions, was he still a good man?
But how did one define "good"? Agnes wondered. She thought of Bill and Bridget, grasping at a bit of happiness before what might become a dreadful time for both of them. Could a woman truly love a man who had left his wife and child to be with her? Was Bill a good man? Was the romance real, even though the man had shown himself to be capable of betrayal? What price was Bill's wife paying for his happiness? And conversely, what price was Jim's wife — Carol, such a cold name — paying as she unwittingly lived with a man who didn't love her?
Of course, Agnes would say none of this.
Jim's last letter to Agnes had been in June. Agnes had written to Jim twice since 9/11, but she had had no reply.
Agnes cherished Jim's letters. They were full of declarations of love and passion. They were full of remembering. He was the only person on the other side of their shared history. Agnes believed in Jim's letters wholeheartedly.
Agnes had waited for so long. She could wait some more.
Stories, Agnes thought, were usually about things that had occurred. Her particular story was about things that had not occurred.
What had not occurred was the sum of all the days and years she and Jim had not had together, the days and years that could never be returned. But, she thought, her story wasn't over yet. Possibilities remained. Sometimes Agnes felt frozen in the expectation of a remarkable destiny that might still materialize.
Agnes followed well-posted signs for the inn (tasteful gold lettering on a dark green background) through small villages and then along a narrow road and finally up a long drive. She pulled into the parking area, relieved to have found the place with no wrong turns. She got out of her Honda Civic, her knee stiff from having remained so long in one position, and limped a bit as she retrieved her luggage from the backseat. Briefly she admired the view, which had not changed, before turning her attention to the house that now gleamed in the sunlight.
My God, she thought, what a transformation!
The house she remembered, Carl Laski's house, had been in near derelict condition, the paint peeling, the sills rotting, the porch floor tentative in places. Now the facade of the inn, with its new cottage windows, fresh paint, and remade porch, resembled a spread one might see in a magazine. Tubs of thriving yellow mums flanked the entrance. The front door, on which there was a Christmas wreath, had been propped open. What day was this anyway? December 7? December 8?
Agnes hoisted her orange nylon duffel bag and her backpack over her shoulder and made her way up the steps and into the lobby. Before her was a long hallway with a highly polished dark wood floor, a stairway with intricately curved posts, and to her right, a reception desk, uninhabited. Agnes set down her luggage. She could hear voices from behind the reception desk. She wandered, arms crossed against her chest, to the sitting room at the right. Two sofas and several armchairs had been arranged in three groupings. Instantly Agnes wanted to lie down. There was a fireplace, not lit, at one end of the room, and at the other, an octagonal game table of black wood. Agnes recalled for a moment the old sitting room, dark with walnut furniture, an upright piano against one wall, the tables and floor covered with books and magazines, wineglasses and ashtrays.
Agnes crossed the hallway and entered another room, one wall of which was a bank of windows that looked out to the shallow mountains in the distance, the sky above them blue dust. She tried to remember what the room had been before the renovation: Carl's office maybe? She heard footsteps on the wooden floor and returned to the hallway. A young woman with thin blond hair was standing behind the desk running her finger down a page of a large guest book. She looked up and noticed Agnes.
"Oh, hi," the woman said. "You just got here?" Her glance slid to the orange duffel bag, which looked garishly out of place in the muted lobby.
Agnes nodded.
"And you are?"
Agnes gave her name.
The woman bent toward the guest book and flipped a page. There's a note here that says I should go get Nora when you arrive. You're a friend?"
'I am," Agnes said.
Do you want to be shown to your room? Or would you rather wait while I find Nora?"
Agnes was torn. Nora might be busy now, and Agnes's arrival would be an inconvenience. Though wouldn't it be rude not to see her?
I'll wait for her," Agnes said. "I think Nora's in the kitchen." while she waited, Agnes examined the hallway again. She noted the chair-rail molding and above it a series of black-and-white photos tastefully matted and framed in thin black wood. They were of village scenes from the 1920s and 1930s, to judge from the automobiles in the pictures. One was of a drugstore, with a woman in a suit and hat emerging. Another was of a house perched on a hill. Edith Wharton's house, if memory served.
"Agnes. "
She turned, and Nora embraced her.
"Look at you!" Nora said, stepping back.
"Look at me? Look at the house!" Agnes said. "Nora, what have you done? It's amazing. I hardly recognize it."
"Do you like it?"
Agnes saw at once that Nora might be slightly vulnerable here, having anticipated and perhaps feared reviews. "What I've seen so far is beautiful," Agnes said at once to ease her mind. "You've done so much work."
"I have," Nora said, not dissembling. "Yes. I have. Well, not always me. Mostly it was the contractor and the architect and the craftsmen. But it feels as though I hammered in every nail, scraped every wall. Come. Let me show you the rest."
Nora turned to the woman behind the desk. "Judy, have Dennis take Agnes's suitcase — is this everything?" she asked Agnes, and Agnes nodded — "up to room twenty-two.
"I think you'll like your room," Nora added to Agnes.
"Not my old room then."
"It doesn't exist. I... I had several of the smaller rooms combined into suites. You'll have one of those."
"Will it still have the quilt?" Agnes asked, allowing herself to be sho
wn into the sitting room she'd visited just minutes before.
"What quilt?"
"The crazy quilt with the velvet and silk?"
"I think I packed that away. Maybe I'll get it out again. It was frayed, wasn't it?"
"It was lovely," Agnes said. "I loved it anyway," she added.
"We broke through a wall here and opened up this room," Nora said, pointing. "We . . . they. . . finally got the fireplace to work, after all these years."
Agnes remembered that the old house had been impossible to heat and that she, Carl, and Nora had often sat around with thick sweaters and blankets. Mostly, though, it had been just Agnes and Nora, Carl usually elsewhere, across the hallway writing or at school.
"Come see the kitchen," Nora said.
Agnes followed Nora through swinging doors. Though Nora was dressed simply in a white shirt and black pants, Agnes couldn't help but notice the chic cut of the shirt, the way it slipped just so over Nora's slim hips, the way the pants were tailored so as to fall perfectly straight and narrow to the expensive black leather boots. "Your hair," Agnes said.
Nora put a hand to the back of her head. "I got rid of it," she said. "Too much work."
Agnes could not imagine what work Nora was referring to. She remembered Nora's hair as thick and chestnut colored, with red threads catching the light. She absentmindedly fingered her own hair, short because it had to be. With any length it would look lank and stringy. Why, if you had such riches, Agnes wondered, would you divest yourself of them? "How have you been?" Agnes asked, meaning Carl.
Fine," Nora said with a firmness that was new to Agnes. "Fine," she repeated, and Agnes could hear a distracted note. As owner of the inn, Nora could be expected to be preoccupied. "Harrison is here," Nora added.
"Is he?" Agnes asked, surveying a room in which the old dismal kitchen was only a faded memory. Two men were working at a pair of stoves set into an island topped with black granite. There were as well two large stainless steel refrigerators, a massive porcelain sink, two stainless steel dishwashers, and a set of white shelves on which dozens of ivory dishes had been stacked.
"I've had fun collecting these," Nora said, making a sweeping gesture to include the dishes. "I go to flea markets and junk shops to find them. Some are very old. They're all mismatched. Which is to me their charm. Any one table setting in the dining room might contain several different patterns."
A long bank of cottage windows let in natural light, though overhead, glass globes hung over the stoves and countertop. For a moment, Agnes flashed on the old kitchen, a narrow room with a table under a small window at one end and a fridge at the other. The cabinets had been painted a 1950s aqua; the floor had been a dark linoleum that Nora could never get entirely clean, no matter how hard she scrubbed. Empty wine bottles with candles in them were perched on ledges, and there had been no view from that kitchen window, just the one glimpse of the front porch. Agnes, as was her habit everywhere, had always been first down to make the coffee. She much enjoyed those solitary moments, watching the light come up, the night turning into day. Nora would join her around 8:30, Carl not at all. He worked until noon, after which he would drive his green VW to St. Martin's for his classes. She remembered dinners that began at nine and lasted until midnight, Agnes begging off in search of her bed with the crazy quilt, leaving the couple downstairs still drinking and smoking and sometimes arguing, a single word occasionally climbing the narrow staircase and making its way down the hall to her ears.
Though it hadn't registered at the time and was now apparent only by contrast, Nora hadn't been entirely well then. Agnes remembered a pale face, translucent bluish shadows under the eyes, the body thin but not strong. Nora had worn long skirts and boots and sweaters and large silver hoop earrings. Carl had always treated Agnes decently (she'd had the feeling he'd been asked to do so), though it was his nature to pry and to scrutinize even the most seemingly innocuous reply. One learned to speak carefully around Carl Laski, unless one was very drunk, which sometimes happened, in which case recklessness might lead to heedlessness and then almost certainly to an argument disguised, as they could all do so well, as intellectual debate. Despite being decidedly looped upon occasion, however, Agnes had never been tempted to tell either of them about Jim, not even Nora, whom she genuinely loved.
Agnes briefly closed her eyes. Where would Jim be now? She glanced at the oversize wooden clock set amid the shelves. He would be at an early lunch, in the dining hall, she guessed, or perhaps taking a walk around the vast grounds of the private school at which he now taught. Would he have a thought of her today?
"You kept that," Agnes said, pointing to the clock.
"Yes, I did. Harrison's here. Did I say that already? He got here about an hour ago. Let me show you to your room."
"Oh, Nora," Agnes said, clearly pleased for her friend, her old roommate from Kidd. "I'm happy to see you looking so well."
"I am well," Nora said with a quick smile. "I'm very well."
Agnes followed Nora up the back stairs — not as grand as the staircase in the front hallway — and along a corridor of polished hardwood floors with small tables set at intervals on which sat bouquets of fresh flowers. Nora stopped at one door and opened it with a key — a real gold-colored key — and held the door so that Agnes could enter first.
It was not the standard-issue country inn room, Agnes thought. No chintz, no patterned curtains, no ruffled bedspreads. Instead, a reeling of simplicity and calm overtook her, and once again she had a strong desire to lie down. The bed and side tables were of a black wood. The bedding was a simple white duvet with a black border, the motif repeated on the pillowcases and shams. Chrome reading lights protruded from the wall, which had been painted a pale taupe. Under the bank of three windows was a white chaise with a chenille throw and on the other side of the room, a black desk with a chair. On a valise stand rested Agnes's orange duffel bag, the only wrong note in this pleasing sonata.
"This could be in House & Garden," Agnes said. "Have you had photographs taken?"
"Oh," Nora said. "A few."
In the bathroom was a tumbled marble counter with polished chrome fixtures that looked as though they'd come from England. Tucked into an alcove and under another bank of windows was an oval bathtub, a Jacuzzi. The linens as well as the bath mats underfoot were plush and white.
"I'm simply amazed," Agnes said, unable any longer to keep from walking to the bed and sitting down.
"You must be tired," Nora said. "I'll let you rest." Nora checked her watch, a gesture Agnes couldn't ever remember Nora making before. Had she even owned a watch?
"To think of you with all of this," Agnes said. She thought about how it might take years to find the thing you really wanted, at which you were really good.
Nora moved toward the door, setting the gold key on the desk. "I'll see you at drinks tonight. If not before. Six-thirty in the library?"
Agnes laughed. "How nice for us that Bill and Bridget decided to get married." She paused. "How is Bridget?" she asked.
"I think it will be a strain for her," Nora said. "But Bill . . . Bill insists he has enough energy and desire for the two of them. We're trying to keep this simple. Bridget may have to leave from time to time to rest. But that's fine. We'll all manage."
"I'm sure it will be lovely," Agnes said.
"If you just go to the dining room, whatever the time, someone will find you and feed you."
Nora shut the door behind her. Alone, Agnes lay down on the bed and then scuttled along the duvet so that her head rested upon the silky-crisp pillowcase. She thought immediately of Jim, of how she wished he were with her. Agnes imagined surprising Nora and the others with her lover, the instant celebrity that would attend her for having brought a former teacher to their gathering — and carrying with her the whiff of scandal, too. But again, no, Agnes would not do that. It would be wrong to upstage Bridget at her own wedding. So there would be no Jim at the inn, though she longed for him. She fanned h
er arm along the duvet, touching the space where Jim might have lain. Sometimes, the longing was keen and rough-edged, and in an instant could turn to rage or self-pity. Why me? Agnes would sometimes cry out. Why could she not have the one thing she really wanted? She would give up everything else. Really she would. Even if she only had a year. Would she take that? A year of frequent and regular meetings and then never again? Yes, she thought she would. For no matter how hard it would be to part after that year, at least she would have had something.
But then again, she thought, she did have something. It was a something large and indefinable, but it was her life.
Agnes sighed and rolled over onto her stomach. She wished she could forget.
Agnes did not have the luxury of forgetting.
She got up off the bed and walked to the window. She leaned her forehead against the glass. At least, she thought, she would be able to write to Jim again without seeming too pushy, without first having had a reply from him. For how could she not write to him of this reunion of his former students? He would want to hear of them, wouldn't he? She would write him a long letter, describing the inn and Nora and all of the others as best she could. She would write a chatty letter — no, a witty letter, one that would make him laugh. There would be no words of love in the letter. It would simply be a missive from one friend to another, multilayered, rich, and detailed.
Agnes saw a man emerging from the entrance. He walked with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He had on a navy sweater over a white dress shirt. His hair was dark and thinning just at the crown. The man made a turn where a path curved around to the back of the inn, and Agnes saw then that it was Harrison Branch. Agnes pushed at the window to open it and realized it was locked. By the time she unlocked the window, Harrison had turned the corner. Agnes would have liked to call to Harrison, would have liked to surprise him with her voice and face. They might have had lunch together. She remembered the boy, diffident and talented, an athlete who didn't make her nervous in the way the other boys sometimes could and did. A boy who was not exceptionally good-looking — not in the way Stephen was, for example — but whose face was immediately appealing. Harrison had been a friend of the popular boys and yet somehow had not been one of them. Agnes imagined that had it not been for his athleticism, particularly on the baseball diamond, he might have been something of a loner. Often she had seen him walking the streets of Fenton by himself.