I had been right to want to drive to the Midwest, taking only the
back roads. Every time my husband, John, and I had taken a trip more
than a few miles away, we’d flown, and had endured the increasingly
irritating airport protocols. I’d finally begun to wear what
amounted to pajamas so that I wouldn’t have to all but strip before
security guards who seemed either worrisomely bored or, equally
worrisome, inflated with a mirthful self-importance. It was hard to
believe that air travel had ever been considered glamorous, when now
what most people felt was a seesawing between anxiety and
exasperation. “Well, folks, looks like our time has been pushed back
again,” the captain would say, and everyone would shake their heads
and snap their newspapers and mutter to their neighbor. And if there
was unexpected turbulence, a quivering silence fell.
Now, on this road trip, my mind seemed to uncrinkle, to breathe, to
present to itself a cure for a disease it had not, until now, known
it had. Rather than the back of an airline seat or endless,
identical rest stops on the interstate, I saw farmhouses in the
middle of protective stands of trees, silos reaching for the sky,
barns faded to the soft red of tomato soup. The weather everywhere
stayed stubbornly warm, and people seemed edgily grateful-what could
this mean, sixty-degree weather in November? I drove through one
small town where old people sat on rockers on front porches and kids
tore around corners on bikes and young mothers, jackets tied around
their waists, proudly pushed babies in strollers.
I passed white wooden churches, red brick schools, stores with names
familiar only to the locals, and movie theaters offering a single
choice. I saw cats stationed at living room windows, horses
switching tails against clouds of gnats, cows in pastures grouped
together like gossips. These scenes seemed imbued with a beauty
richer than normal; they seemed so perfect as to have been staged. I
felt as though I were driving through a museum full of pastoral
bas-reliefs, and I took in the details that way, with wonder and
appreciation. That was the tolerable part of my new vulnerability,
the positive side of feeling my heart had migrated out of my body to
hang on my chest like a necklace.
There was an infinite variety of trees, and I felt ashamed to know
the names of so few of them. John and I used to talk about how the
current phase of the moon as well as the names of trees and flowers
and birds-at least the local ones!-should be front and center in
people’s brains; maybe such a connection to nature would help to
make us more civilized. But I was as guilty as anyone; the only tree
I knew beyond pines and willows and birches was the black locust,
and that was because I liked the way John had described the
blossoms’ scent: like grape lollipops. I passed massive-trunked
trees standing powerful and alone, and imagined how in summer their
leafy canopy would provide a gigantic circle of shade. I passed a
group of reedy saplings bending like ballerinas in the wind. Willow
trees dipped their bare branches into pond water like girls testing
the temperature with their toes.
I felt a low and distinct kind of relaxation. Time became real.
Nature became real: the woods, the sky, the lakes, the high bluffs
and low valleys, the acres of spent fields, the muddy riverbanks.
Live photos flashed before me: Here, a construction worker eating a
sandwich, one foot up on the bumper of his truck. Here, a woman in
curlers loading groceries into her car. Here, a child glimpsed
through a kitchen window, standing on a stool to reach into a
cupboard; there, a beauty operator giving an old lady a perm.
I saw in a way I never had before the beauty and diversity of our
earnest labor on the earth, and also our ultimate separateness. This
helped my pain metamorphose into something less personal and more
universal, something organic and natural. And that helped give me
strength. Someone had to die first. It turned out to be John.
Nothing more. Nothing less. What fell to me now, what I was driving
toward, was the creation of a new kind of life, minus the ongoing
influence of what I had loved and depended upon most in the world.
In a way, my situation reminded me of a little girl I’d once seen
exiting a roller coaster at a state fair, all wide eyes and pale
face and shaky knees. When her brother asked if she’d like to ride
again, she said, “Not until I’m way readier.” I felt myself trapped
in line for a ride I was not nearly ready for, looking back but
moving forward in the only direction I could go.
Mile by mile, the country unfurled before me-in bright morning
light, throughout golden afternoons, under the pastel-colored skies
of evenings. Once, just outside of Cleveland, when the sky was
lavender and the clouds pink, I pulled to the side of the freeway to
watch until darkness smudged the colors into night. Land rushed up,
then fell away; rushed up, then fell away. I became intimately aware
of the lay of the land, felt the rise and fall of it in my stomach
as I drove up and down steep hills. I deliberately pushed everything
out of my head but what was before me. Still, every now and then a
quick thrill raced up my spine in the form of a thought: I am my own
again. Sorrow that lay pooled inside me gave over to a kind of
exhilaration in those moments; the relief was stunning.
Though impermanent. One night, I checked into a motel at around ten
o’clock. Next door, I heard a couple making love. Their sounds were
sloppy and slightly hysterical-Drunk, I thought. I turned the radio
up loud, ran a bath, and while sitting at the edge of the tub
unwrapping the absurdly little bar of soap, I felt the weight of my
loss move slowly back into me. After I dried off, I sat before the
television and marveled at the drivel that passed for entertainment.
I turned it off, finally, then sat at the side of the bed and stared
out at nothing. I picked up the telephone and dialed my home number.
I heard the characteristic tones, then, The number you have reached
has been disconnected. I hung up, closed my eyes, and took in a deep
breath. Then I knelt at the side of the bed and pushed my face into
my hands.
Late in the afternoon of the third day, I pulled over to a
frozen-yogurt stand near the center of a small town that looked
particularly attractive to me. A tall, early-thirtyish man waited on
me. He was beginning to bald already and had a distressing
complexion. But his eyes, as though in compensation, were a
brilliant blue. “That’ll be a dollar sixty-five,” he said, handing
me the raspberry cone I’d ordered. I pulled two dollars from my
wallet and handed them to him, then took a lick of the yogurt.
“Delicious,” I said, and smiled at him. He smiled back, hesitantly,
then fussed with the register for a long while as I watched, first
in mild annoyance, then in sympathy, finally in utter fascination.
Eventually, the man turned and called to someone in the back room.
“Louise?” he said, apparently too softly, for then he called a bit
louder, “Louise?”
“WHAT?” she yelled back.
The man straightened the paper hat on his head. “Could you come out
and help me?” he asked. “Please?”
Louise came out to the cash register, scowling. She was wearing a
maroon sweat suit and was massively overweight. She wore her hair in
a high ponytail. It was beautiful hair, thick and auburn-colored; I
concentrated on it while she concentrated on me. Finally, I looked
at her face. “Hello,” I said.
She jutted her chin at me. “How you doing.” There was mischief in
her eyes.
“Was that you yelling back there?” I asked.
She grinned. “Yeah, that was me, whistling while I work.” She jerked
her head toward the man. “This goes on all the livelong day.”
“Oh, well,” I said. “That’s all right.”
“Easy for you to say.” She turned to glare at the man, who studied
his shoes. Then she fixed the register and stomped off.
“Okay!” the man said. “Says here I owe you thirty-five cents!” He
handed me the change.
I thanked him, then, laughing, said, “Though I think you could have
figured that out on your own.”
He looked doubtful.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Don’t you think we’re getting way too
dependent on these damn machines?”
Now he looked grateful. “Idn’t it?”
I thanked him again and headed for the door. But I turned back
before I opened it. “Could you tell me what town this is?”
He pointed to the floor. “This here town where we’re at now?”
“Yes.”
He straightened, made himself taller. “This is Stewart, Illinois,
and I’ll tell you what, it’s only forty-nine miles from Chicago.
Exactamento. I been here my whole life. It’s a good town, Stewart.
Is this what you’re looking for?”
I hesitated, then answered, “Yes.”
As I started to open the door again, I heard him clear his throat
and say, “Miss?”
I turned back. He was blushing, but with a kind of borrowed
confidence, he said, “Would you like to be on my radio show?”
I tried hard not to let my astonishment show. “You have a radio
show?”
“Yes, ma’am, Talk of the Town. I get guests from town on, and we
talk. That’s the show.”
I thought of the empty miles I’d driven through to get to this town,
the few places of business I’d seen thus far. I didn’t recall
anything that looked like it might be-or house-a broadcasting
studio. “Where?” I asked.
“Right at WMRZ a few blocks over. It’s above the drugstore. I’ve had
Louise on my show-we talked about yogurt: Where has it been and
where is it going? Louise liked being on a lot, you can ask her. She
got dressed up and everything, got herself a new purse for that
show.” He lowered his voice and leaned over the counter to say,
“Louise is the one sponsors me. Her bite is way worse than her bark,
if you know what I mean.”
I hesitated, then refrained from correcting him. Instead, I said,
“Yes, I know exactly what you mean.”
“So do you want to be on? I tape every Sunday morning. Six-thirty.
You’d have to get up early, but you’re going to church, anyways,
just get ready sooner.”
“Well, I …”
“You don’t need to answer now,” the man said. ” If you want to do
it, just come back and see me here. Or you can call me. My name’s Ed
Selwin. My number’s in the book. It’s spelled exactly more or less
like it sounds. You can think on it. Just, I figured if you’s moving
here, it’d be good to interview you. You being a new person and
all.”
“But I … did I say I was moving here?”
“Not exactly. I just saw your loaded-up car with out-of-state
plates, and then you said this is the town you were looking for …”
“I see.”
“And since you’d be a new person here, it’d be interesting to see
where you came from and such. Like that. And don’t worry-people get
nervous being on the radio, just a natural thing, but I’ll settle
you right down.”
“Okay, well … I’ll let you know.” I waved goodbye and began
licking the quickly melting yogurt. Inside the car, I started the
engine, turned on the heat-the weather had finally become seasonally
appropriate-and finished eating. I had an odd but familiar feeling
inside, a kind of surety without grounding. It was something I often
felt as a child, and it drove me to do things very quickly and
without regret. I wondered if I should say, Yes, here, this is the
place, just like that, and then go in search of somewhere to live.
Why not? What had I to lose, really? I was in the middle of the
country, as I’d wanted to be. It looked to be a charming little
town. And anyway, I wouldn’t mind moving back toward a certain
boldness of spirit, a reliance on a kind of luck I’d always enjoyed.
I remembered a story I once heard about a couple from a farm in Iowa
looking for a place to live in Washington, D.C. They weren’t having
any success; everything was incredibly expensive, and to make
matters worse, they had three dogs. They became greatly discouraged,
and then one day the woman threw up her hands and said, “All right.
Let’s just drive ten minutes one way and then turn left. And then
drive ten minutes more and turn right. And then ten minutes
straight, and if we don’t find something, we’ll give up.” What they
drove to was a huge farmhouse just outside the city, and a man was
standing outside of it. Feeling more than a little foolish, the
couple asked if the man happened to know of anything around for
rent. Turned out he had a little house on his property he used for
hired hands that was newly vacated. Freshly painted. They could have
it for next to nothing if they’d help a bit with chores. And three
dogs? No problem. John once said, “Sometimes serendipity is just
intention, unmasked.” I think I answered him with some sort of vague
Mmm-hmm, right, hidden as I was behind the Globe’s book review. But
I’d always remembered it. And now I thought I knew what he’d meant.
When you were willing to say what you really wanted, something just
might help you along.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from The Year of Pleasures
by Elizabeth Berg
Copyright © 2005 by Elizabeth Berg.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Random House
Copyright © 2005
Elizabeth Berg
All right reserved.
ISBN: 1-4000-6160-1
