A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [75]
Agnes caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and was not happy with what she saw. Her face looked haggard, her eyes slightly bloodshot. Her hair was matted on one side from sleep. Her breath was foul. She found her toothpaste in her toilet kit and brushed her teeth. She knew she ought to get into the shower and let the water clear her head, but the idea of a shower—washing the body, shampooing the hair, drying it with the hair dryer—seemed like a tremendous amount of effort just now. Instead, she walked to the desk and sat in the chair. She stared at the snow.
What would she do all day? A baseball game was clearly out of the picture. Visit the outlets? But would the roads be cleared? Sledding? Agnes thought she could get mildly interested in coasting down the long hill that sloped away from the inn. But would that activity completely occupy her thoughts the way downhill skiing used to do? Or would she still feel dogged by the ghost of the man who was with her always? With her and not with her. New activities, new pleasures, must always, by definition, be only half experienced.
She fingered the blotter on the desk. She could write to Jim. Yes, she could. The activity, by its very nature, suggested a kind of satisfactory completion. Agnes would write from Massachusetts. The letter would travel to Wisconsin. Jim would fetch the letter from his mailbox at school. He would tear open the envelope. He would read the letter. Circuit complete.
In the desk drawer, Agnes found the leather folder that held the inn’s stationery. There were three large sheets of writing paper, two envelopes, and one postcard. Of course Agnes would not send a postcard.
She reached for the ballpoint pen on the desk. Her handwriting was tiny and very neat.
Dear Jim,
she began.
I think I might have written you a few weeks back that Bridget Kennedy (later Rodgers and this evening to be Ricci) is marrying Billy Ricci. Do you remember her? She was always with us in our group of friends at Kidd, and I know you and I have talked about her before. Of course, you remember Billy from our Am lit class. Yes, that Am lit class.
I am here now in Nora’s new inn. I’m sorry you never saw the old house. I used to sleep in a guest room under a velvet and silk crazy quilt that was quite worn but very beautiful. Nora has done a brilliant job of converting the old house to an inn, and I imagine it’s cost her a lot of money. The inn is luxurious, more European than Country Living. Just now I was in bed enjoying the feel of the silky sheets and the down comforter. I was, of course, missing you.
And there I’ve already gone and done what I meant not to do. I wanted to write you a chatty letter telling you of our mini-reunion. I wished to keep this light. But I can’t. You are with me all the time. Sometimes I feel as though I have a lover who has died, whose memory I keep alive. Being apart from you is a particular sort of agony: the separations painful, the memories delicious.
The early memories are the most delicious of all. Last night, I was remembering that day before Thanksgiving when I came back from college and drove to Kidd to visit you. I’d been thinking about you ever since graduation, and I believe I went to Kidd with the idea of telling you that. But then, face-to-face with you, I found myself too shy to say much at all. You sat across the desk from me and asked questions, and I answered them, all the time knowing that in a few minutes I would have to get up and leave and that I’d never again have a good enough excuse to visit you. You must have wondered at my bumbling answers, my distracted manner. I was all nerves. Stupidly, I just sat there until finally you said you had a meeting, that you’d walk me to my car.
It was a kind of death walk for me: those slow steps from your office and along the hallway. I thought of doing something theatrical, turning to you and telling you I loved you. I imagined your shock, the Hollywood kiss, dangerous and thrilling in the corridors of Kidd. But there were people all about,