The Gazebo: A Novel Read Free

she knew. Abby felt certain that a tale of two lovers reuniting every year for fifty years was one her father would have run in the newspaper. He knew what spoke to the community. Whether it spoke to
him
—whether he was capable of considering anything in any capacity other than as the editor of the newspaper—was another question entirely. Once, when Abby was a teenager, she had asked her mother, “Who does Dad love more, you or the
Ledger
?”
    “That’s a complicated question,” her mother had answered, after a long moment’s consideration. “I think he loves us both, but in different ways.”
    The answer stunned Abby. She had expectedher mother to say something reassuring: “Why,
me
, of course, but your father sometimes has trouble expressing his emotions.” But instead her mother had decided to give Abby a different truth, a more complete one, and in doing so she also had imparted an essential lesson: don’t ask the question unless you want to know the answer.
    The question Abby had come here to ask at dusk was primarily whether she wanted to run this story in the paper. But she’d also come to sit on a bench near the gazebo in the square now to find out what
her
response was—not as an editor, but as a reader. Did the story speak to
her?
Did it resonate? But time was passing, Claire and Martin hadn’t shown up, and now, Abby supposed, she’d never know.
    It was dark in the town square. The sun had slipped behind the stand of trees at the west end of the square, and then behind a cluster of storefronts. Martin had told her that he and Claire had never missed a meeting in the gazebo, not once in fifty years; Abby didn’t know whether to be irritated or concerned. She considered calling the police, but whatwould she be reporting? She didn’t know either of these people. Maybe one of them was busy and had told the other one this morning, and they had rescheduled their meeting for a different day. Maybe she’d missed them. By the time she returned to the town square from her house, they might have come and gone. Or maybe the whole tiling was a hoax. But she couldn’t quite believe that was the case. Martin Rayfiel, in the brief time he had spoken to her, had been earnest and forceful: an ardent, breakable man.
    Abby stood and looked around. She was alone now. The shops that ringed the square on all four sides were closed, their shutters drawn, their gates shut. She walked over to the empty gazebo, climbed its two white steps, and sat down inside. She tried to picture Martin and Claire meeting there, embracing as they sat on the white wooden slats. Then she noticed something; it was underneath one of the seats, half hidden there. Abby bent forward, then got down on one knee to retrieve it: a briefcase.
    She pulled it out of the shadows and set it on the floor of the gazebo. It was old andworn, but made of quality leather and stitching that had clearly lasted many years. She ran her fingers along the stamped letters of the monogram:
M.R
. This was Martin Rayfiel’s briefcase, the one he had carried into her office the day before. Had he left it here for Abby to find? And if so, why? She looked around the square; she was still alone. She hesitated a moment longer, then reached for the clasps. The locks sprang easily, and she flipped the lid open.
    The briefcase was filled with a jumble of items, many of them difficult to see in the dim light from the streetlamps in the square, and none of them meaningful to her in any way. It looked like the assortment of things you might find in a chest in someone’s attic: old postcards, letters, restaurant menus, faded photographs, long–forgotten trinkets. She passed her hand over it lightly, fearful of disturbing some unseen order, until at last her fingers came to rest on a stack of several cassette tapes held together with a thick rubber band. She picked up the tapes, raised the stack to catch the light from a nearby lamp, angled it until she could make out the