The Year of Pleasures Read Free Page A

about fifteen minutes to get there,” she said. “Take a walk around the place. Look at the garden in the back. There’s not much there now, of course, but you’ll get an idea. Lydia Samuels made a bargain with the devil to get a garden like that one. I’ll show you pictures of it in bloom when I get there. What’s your name, anyway?”
    I told her, then added, “I’m from Boston.”
    Silence.
    “But I’m moving. Here. Maybe. I mean, I
am
moving, for sure. I just don’t know if it’s to this house.”
    A moment, and then, slowly, “Well, of course you don’t, hon. You haven’t even seen it yet. You just have a look around and I’ll see you soon. I’m Delores, okay?”
    So much for not seeming deranged.
    I looked through the window a while longer, then headed for the back of the house. There was a narrow strip garden along the side, but in the backyard was a magnificent plot, gently curving in and out, taking up fully half of the yard. A white stone birdbath was stationed in the center, the pedestal plain and solid, the bath in the form of a shell. Dried leaves had accumulated at the bottom, and I brushed them out with proprietary license. At the far end of the garden there were two birdhouses stationed side by side, one slightly taller than the other. They were sturdy and handsome and huge, made from a dark green metal. Judging from the cobwebs, they’d been long without seed; I hoped this meant the house had been empty for some time. Then the owners would be more eager to sell.
    There was a garage, painted the same cream color as the house, with a multipaned window complete with shutters and a window box. I looked through the glass and saw rakes and shovels neatly lined up, flowerpots stacked high on wooden shelving, plastic bags full of something I couldn’t identify, freestanding pieces of latticework, tightly bound piles of garden stakes in all sizes. This was not a backyard garden, I thought; it was the Kennedy compound! I couldn’t possibly take care of it. But I wanted it with the fierce longing and determination of a child fixated on a toy behind glass. It was more than the beauty of this house making me want it. It was that I thought acquiring it would somehow empower me to do more of what I needed to do. There was so much more I would need to do.
    I went to the middle of the yard and stood before the barren garden, imagining myself here in the summer. I saw myself lying on a chaise on a warm afternoon, drinking lemonade, a fat novel open in my lap. Bumblebees, weighted with pollen, would fly from blossom to blossom, drunk-looking with their loopy flight patterns. Or I would lie out at night, watching fireflies; there were fireflies in the Midwest.
    And then I realized I was having this fantasy thinking that John would be there, too; in my mind’s eye, I’d seen the end of the chaise he lay on, his ankles crossed, his feet bare and tan.
    I sat down on the ground and wrapped my arms around my knees. “What do you think?” I asked. Overhead, an airplane flew by. The pilot did not dip his wings. A breeze did not caress my cheek. A bird did not land on a bare branch and sing a song of pointed assent. No whispered words came into my ear, made-up or somehow real. But I did not need such assurances to know what his answer would have been. I had not lost him that much.
    I went up to the door on the back porch, hoping I’d be able to see the kitchen, but faded yellow curtains covered the glass completely. And then I heard the sound of someone calling,
“Yoo-hoo!”
    I’m taking it,
I thought.
Yoo-hoo, indeed.
    A heavyset woman with short white hair came around the corner. I put her in her late sixties, early seventies. She wore an ill-fitting mustard-colored Realtor’s jacket over a black-and-white print dress—you could see that a patch had been removed from over the front pocket of the blazer. Her shoes were red and badly worn. She had been a good-looking woman, in her time; she had beautiful,