Red & Wolfe, Part I: An Erotic Fairy Tale Read online

  “Bitch!”

  Katie’s ahead of me, but she’s got short legs. I gain quickly. As soon as I find my stride, feeling almost happy for the first time in weeks, a little kid trips right in front of me and I almost slice his hand off with my skate. By the time we reach the other side of the pond, Katie has grabbed an older man’s arm in a desperate attempt not to wipe out, and I’ve bumped into a pregnant woman. What can I say? I was blinded by my bangs.

  Katie beats me by a foot or two, and we shove each other a few times, both barely keeping our balance. We’re laughing and panting as we move toward the edge of the pond, looping a boisterous group of college guys.

  When we reach a quieter patch of ice, I turn to her. “I forgot to record your thing.”

  “Was I on it?”

  I drop my head into my hand. “I’m a shitty friend. I fell asleep, so I don’t even know.”

  “You dirty whore.”

  “I know, I know. I suck big, hairy balls.”

  “It’s okay,” she says. “I know you have a lot on your mind.”

  “No it’s not.” We skate side-by-side, and somewhere nearby, there is music; and all around us, people slide by wearing clothes they got from their dressers and closets, talking to people they care about, smiling because they are happy; and suddenly I know—I just fucking know—that things are about to change for me. Big time. I’m not sure how, and I’m too afraid to want to know, but I can feel it. I can sense my path diverging from Katie’s, even as we skate here, side by side.

  My throat feels thick and tight. I think I’m going to cry. Not because I’m scared or sad for myself, but because I really will miss her and the gang from work. We will never be friends the way we were.

  I need a distraction. “Do you think he did it?”

  “Wuh?”

  “James Wolfe.”

  “Aaaah.” She shakes her head, blonde pigtails bouncing. “I never did.” We bump elbows as we move around the perimeter of the pond. “Mainly because of the whole voice thing. You might not have watched it closely enough to see all the evidence, or not evidence, but there were some pretty serious holes in the case. Most notably this bit about a butler who supposedly heard a man’s voice that didn’t sound how James Wolfe’s voice actually sounds. But as far as whether he actually did it, or ordered it done…” She shakes her head. “I guess I’m just going on a gut feeling.”

  That’s all anyone can go on. James Wolfe hasn’t been seen in six years. “Where do you think he went?”

  Katie shrugs. “Could have been anywhere. I’d get the heck out of the country if I were him.”

  I think once more about the clean-shaven, hard-jawed man with dark brown eyes, and then I push him from my mind. I want to enjoy this night with Katie. So I do. We talk about work, gliding and twirling through the crowd. The head copy editor, Jane, just got engaged to her longtime girlfriend, and last night, Katie got called out to a big heroin bust. We talk about a controversial editorial in The Boston Globe. We pull off our skates and put on our shoes and walk to a coffee shop, where Katie orders a cinnamon bagel and a hot cocoa and I ask for tea; it’s only $2.10.

  “Why aren’t you getting coffee?” Katie bugs her eyes out.

  I smile proudly. “Gave it up.”

  I’m a liar. But I make it home without having to tell her I’m giving up the apartment, without bursting into tears or freezing to death. I don’t even have blisters from the skates.

  The first thing I do is check the job boards and my professional, Sarah Ryder e-mail address. I’ve got four confirmations from the job apps I put through yesterday, but nothing good. No call backs; mostly just spam.

  I check my Red account, the one I used to e-mail Gertrude. No reply. Emboldened by my desperate circumstances, I send another e-mail telling her I was drunk but really would like to meet. Then I read some of her poetry. It’s beautiful stuff, with lines about flowers like solemn children and the terror of a lone cloud.

  I wonder what she’s like now. I wonder if she’d remind me of my mother. It’s that particular curiosity that, first thing Monday morning, drives me to phone Strike magazine in New York City. Gertrude founded it in the mid-1960s: “a journal of enlightenment and issues” aimed at “the contemporary woman.”

  I get an operator and ask for the managing editor, a woman named Zoey Cruella. I’m put through to her assistant, Thomas, a polite guy who seems a few years younger than me. I tell Thomas my sad story, starting with my single-mother rearing and ending with Mom’s untimely death, at 38, of pancreatic cancer.

  “I was thinking of my mom today and I figured, why not try to get Gertrude’s address? I thought you guys might have it. She’s on the magazine’s board, isn’t she?”

  Thomas confirms that indeed she is, but he says he can’t just had it out.

  “So there’s nothing you can do for me?”

  “Just a moment.”

  He returns and says, “I think my boss has found a solution. I’m going to quiz you.”

  “Okay.” I chew my lip. “I’ll do my best.”

  “What was your mother’s full name?”

  “Georgia Anna Deckert.”

  “And your full name?”

  “Sarah Lynn Ryder.”

  “Okay. You’re in business. Please don’t share this, though. It’s only a mailing address—not physical—but Ms. O’Malley values her privacy.”

  An hour later, I’m walking to the mailbox with a good ole fashioned hand-written letter. My hungry stomach hurts with nervousness. Things are feeling more real now that I’ve got less than two weeks with a roof over my head. What if she never replies? What if she does, and she invites me to come see her? What if she could help me get a job?

  I forfeit my pride and call Thomas back, asking if there are any openings at Strike.

  “No,” he says. “I’m sorry.” But he doesn’t sound sorry. He sounds annoyed.

  On a whim, I call my landlord, Dursey. “I’m sorry to bother you again, but I wanted to let you know— I wanted to ask if you know of any jobs and tell you I’d take almost anything. If you have any friends or anything…”

  Silence stretches out between us before finally, Dursey clears his throat.

  “For sure. I’ll let you know.”

  But he won’t. I can tell.

  The days begin to slide through my fingers. My eye starts twitching like it did after Mom died. I stop eating. I just can’t choke food down. I watch my phone and check my e-mail and apply for more jobs. I even go by Hugh’s and ask the owner, Benjamin, if he would hire me.

  “In a heartbeat, honey. But I’ve got no openings right now.”

  One night, in a state of panic, I look up escort services. I’m not super sexually experienced—no more than average, whatever that is—but I like orgasms, and I’m not ugly. I could maybe have sex with carefully vetted strangers if it meant I could afford a small apartment.

  I check college apartment boards, hoping to find a situation where I’d be one of several roommates. Maybe I could get a low rent that way. I e-mail two girls, but get no response.

  A week goes by, a week in which I collect an additional $264 from the sale of various belongings. A week in which I awake in the night, heart beating frantically, and check my inbox with sweaty fingers. A week in which I stand up the Journal crew for bingo.

  On a Wednesday afternoon, I sell most of my clothes, adding a measly $43 to my sad sum. I go door to door again, hitting literally every business on Beacon Hill and the surrounding neighborhoods. I swallow the absolute last smidgen of my pride and frenziedly apply at a work-all-night janitorial service, at a Wendy’s, at a car wash down the street.

  I wish I hadn’t had to sell my Kia to make rent last month. If I still had it, I could expand the door-to-door part of my job hunt.

  On Tuesday, I take the bus to West End and Boston Commons; on Wednesday, Back Bay, and Cambridge. I spend both days walking as far as I can, grabbing job applications from every place with an opening and filling them
out on the cold sidewalk, pressing my pen down on my wallet and trying to keep my trembling fingers still enough so my handwriting is readable. I get home at half past two a.m. Thursday, exhausted and trembling from hunger.

  Katie pops up the next day and breezes right into the apartment, which is, accidentally, unlocked.

  She looks around with horror on her face and puts her hands on her hips. “Red, what the hell?”

  I’ve been found out, and I’m slightly mortified, but I shrug and play it off. “I’m moving.”

  “Holy wow.” Her mouth lolls. “Just…holy.”

  I twirl around the almost-empty living room with my arms out. “I’m trying to live simply.”

  “Holy shit, you got evicted, didn’t you? Because Carl left you high and dry.”

  “I didn’t get evicted. I’m moving.”

  “In with Gage and I.”

  “No way.” They live in an 800-square-foot flat and fight and fuck like a pair of rabid cats.

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Yes!”

  “Katie—”

  “Then where are you going?” she demands.

  “I’ve got plans.”

  “You don’t, Red. Quit putting me off. You’ve been doing it for weeks now and I’m tired of turning a blind eye to this…to this crisis.”

  I roll my eyes. “K, you’re totally over-reacting.”

  She’s not.

  My latest plan involves buying a bus ticket to Florida, where it’s always warm and I can sleep under a dock. I’ll use the free WiFi at coffee shops to apply for jobs. Maybe the Peace Corps.

  So I’m surprised when I blurt out, “I’m going to see my grandmother.”

  “Gertrude?”

  I nod slowly. “Yeah.”

  This will be the easiest way to disappear. So Katie won’t worry. I’ll find a job in Florida, find a fresh start.

  Over the next few hours, I convince Katie this is true. We read Gertrude’s poems aloud, and Katie orders Chinese food, which I devour so quickly I puke it all back up once Katie leaves.

  Late that night, I’m curled up on a blanket in my empty bedroom, wearing the pink iPhone ear buds I used to wear when I wrote at work. I’m lying on my back, my face striped by the streetlight streaming through my blinds. I’m listening to Lana Del Ray, surfing the internet for what will be one of the last times ever on my phone; I’ve just sold it on Craig’s List for $90.

  My leg itches and I reach down to scratch it. One of my nails is jagged. I scrape my calf just a little, and it stings.

  I start to sob. I tug at my hair.

  “How did this happen? What the fuck is wrong with everything?”

  I rip the ear buds from my ears and toss my phone down. I jump up and tug my sneakers on without socks. I stab my arms into my coat and run toward Beacon Hill, where the bar crowd’s out in full force and creepers stand in alleys with their heads lowered. The air is so cold it feels like a corporeal thing.

  I continue toward Boston Commons, and when I reach the pond, I spend five bucks on skates, because why the fuck not? I skate furiously in circles, until the dim stars that wink through spindly tree branches are nothing but a blur, and the faces passing by and the strings of lights and crying of a child and icy wind that slaps my cheeks seem like slivers of some dream.

  This is not my life. It cannot be my life.

  I skate until my feet are numb, and by the time I make it home, my hands are so frostbitten they burn terribly.

  I take a hot shower and bundle up in my blankets. I check my Facebook, my e-mail, and feel the morbid compulsion to check my bank account. I do this fanatically now, sometimes like every five minutes. I’m not sure if I’m trying to motivate or torture or…holy shit.

  The page has loaded. I blink. And blink. And wipe my eyes and blink.

  My heart is pounding hard. Blood roars inside my ears. This can’t be right. It just…can’t be. But there it is. In simple, san serif font, black on a white screen underneath my bank’s emblem:

  $30,377.12

  I can’t believe my eyes. I must be going crazy. I log out, in, and out again. Twice. Four times. Six.

  My phone vibrates: an e-mail. [email protected]

  She has written only one word: “Come.”

  Attached is a photocopy of a hand-drawn map, sketched with an ‘X’ on one Rabbit Island, a blip about two miles off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. At the bottom is Gertrude’s e-signature.

  I’m pretty sure my “FUCK YES! HELL YES! FUCK!” is heard all through my building.

  I throw my snow-damp sneakers back on and dash all the way to Fred’s Coffee & Bagels, where I order a grande latte and four extra-fattening, buttery, cinnamon-crusted bagels.

  I walk slowly home to my nearly empty apartment, thanking God and sleet and smog and dirty snow for what this night has brought me. I’ve made some stupid choices, but e-mailing grandma is not one of them.

  As I climb behind the wheel of my new-to-me ’04 Camry the next afternoon, I’m beaming from ear to ear. I’m going to meet my mom’s mother, and after that—or maybe before if I’m extra lucky—I’m going to find a way to end this two month dry spell.

  *

  WOLFE

  I leave the island four times annually—one trip inland for each season—and that’s mostly for Trudie. Was for Trudie. She needed things on occasion, and with her bum hip, it was easier for me to get them.

  After she passed, I debated ever leaving the island again. No reason to. I’ve got food and supplies. I can get Bob, my cousin and my manager, to arrange a courier to get the paintings. Maybe pay him to haul his ass down here and do it himself if he doesn’t trust a third party. Not my problem. Keeping me anonymous is Bob’s problem. Has been since we started.

  The only thing that made me second-guess confinement to the island was pussy.

  When I first came here four years ago, I didn’t leave for months. I started dreaming of pussy. Smelling pussy. Even tasting it. So I found Clarice, a lonely young widow in one of the row houses by the water. She likes it like I do, and she never wants to see my face.

  She’s a good enough fuck. But I have to go to her. I would never bring her here. I would never bring anyone here.

  I could pay for pussy. Liplocked pussy. Motor boat some discreet escort to the island. But escorts are boring.

  Even Clarice—predictable, submissive Clarice—could conceivably say “no.” She could fight me if she wanted. And I need that. Need to think that maybe one day, she’ll decide to twist around and grab my hair and look into my eyes.

  Without that possibility, without the chance that it could all implode, it’s not fucking worth it.

  So, no escorts in motor boats.

  After I’ve had some time to digest Trudie’s death and my subsequent inheritance of Rabbit Island, I decide no more Clarice, either.

  I’ll find another way to deal with my dick.

  Peace follows my decision. Peace: the closest thing I’d found to happiness. I think Trudie would have been glad for me.

  I celebrate my vow of seclusion by wandering the forest. Pines and oaks, cypress, swampland. The island is an eighth of a mile long, and I love every fucking inch of it. I leave my cabin for two nights and pitch a tent on the boulder on the northwest side of the island. Sit beside it with my feet in the sand and listen to the whip-poor-will, to the lapping of the waves. Watch cypress branches drifting in the salty breeze. And when I can’t keep my hands still any longer, I let myself paint. A gull in the water. A squirrel on an oak. Simple shit.

  The next day, I call Bob. Set up the courier.

  And then three days ago, when I’m up at Trudie’s cottage, archiving her unpublished poems, the phone rings.

  Trudie wasn’t a lover of technology, and she especially hated talking on the phone. In her honor, I let her archaic answering machine pick up. I wonder who the fuck has her number. The old woman was more reclusive than even me.

  A second later, a ma
le voice fills her little office.

  “This is a message for James Wolfe. I’m Michael Halcomb, partner at Halcomb & Mallory and Gertrude O’Malley’s new estate attorney. I need to talk to you about her attempted deeding of Rabbit Island to you.”

  I sit there a moment, absorbing the echo of my name; resisting the urge to grab the phone. Then I pluck it off her desk. “What do you mean attempted?”

  I can tell the lawyer is surprised to hear my voice. I’ve got a deep voice. Distinctive. Shit… It’s fucking infamous.

  I’m fucking infamous.

  Bet the bastard was hoping he wouldn’t reach me.

  “Mr. Wolfe?” His voice sounds tinny.

  “You mentioned a problem?”

  He clears his throat. “Er…yes sir. I’m glad I reached you. There’s an issue with the deeding of the island. Nothing insurmountable—”

  “Spit it out.”

  “I’m afraid the attorney in charge of Ms. O’Malley’s final arrangements was a junior colleague. He was only on the—”

  “Spit. It. Out.”

  “The island can’t be deeded to you, despite your being temporarily in charge of her trust. In the event that no family member is helping govern the trust, conservation land like the island can’t pass hands. For ownership of the island to change hands posthumously, it’s got to be done via Gertrude’s family. There’s only one living descendant, according to my research. A granddaughter—”

  “Sarah Ryder.” A redhead. Freckled and pale, from the look of her in the photo on Trudie’s desk. Despite some kind of family feud, Trudie kept track of the girl. Subscribed to the Boston Journal online. Even had me program Google to send Trudie an e-mail alert when it picked up the name “Sarah L. Ryder.”

  In the last few weeks of Trudie’s life, I corresponded two times with her oncologist via e-mail. Which is how I found out that little, red-haired Sarah lost her job. About a week before Trudie passed, Sarah e-mailed, wanting to meet up. Trudie asked me not to reply.

  “I waited too late,” she told me.

  Why hadn’t Sarah reached out to her until now? I did some checking around, had Bob call up a mutual friend from our Bridgewater days, and found out little miss Sarah was looking for a job. Looking unsuccessfully. Applications out all over Boston.