Delia's directions were like Delia: clear in places, completely frazzled in others. The first part was easy. I'd taken the main road through town then past the city limits, where the scenery turned from new subdivisions and office buildings to smaller farmhouses to big stretches of pasture and dairy lands, plus cows. It was the turn off of that road, however—which led to Delia's street—where I got stuck. Or lost. Or both. It just wasn't there, period, no matter how many times I drove up and down looking for it. Which became sort of embarrassing, as there was a produce stand I kept driving by—its sign, painted in bright red, said, tomatoes fresh flowers pies—where an older woman was sitting in a lawn chair, a large flashlight in her lap, reading a paperback book. The third time I passed her, she put the book down and watched me. The fourth, she got involved.
"You lost, sugar?" she called out as I crept past, scanning the scenery for the turnoff—"It's a narrow dirt road, blink and you'll miss it," Delia had said—wondering if this was some sort of induction process for new employees or something, like hazing or catering boot camp. I stopped my car, then backed up slowly. By the time I reached the stand, the woman had gotten out of her chair and was coming to bend down into my passenger window. She looked to be in her early fifties, maybe, with graying hair pulled back at her neck, and was wearing jeans and a white tank top, with a shirt tied around her ample waist. She still had the paperback in her hand, and I glanced at the title: The Choice, by Barbara Starr. There was a shirtless man on the cover, a woman in a tight dress pressed against him. Her place was held with a nail file.
"I'm looking for Sweetbud Drive," I said. "It's supposed to be off this road, but I can't—"
"Right there," she said, turning and pointing to a gravel strip to the right of the produce stand, so narrow it looked more like a driveway than a real street. "Not your fault you missed it, the sign got stolen again last night. Bunch of damn potheads, I swear." She indicated a spot on the other side of the drive where, in fact, there was a metal pole, no sign attached. "And that's the fourth time this year. Now nobody can find my house until the DOT gets someone out here to replace it."
"Oh," I said. "That's terrible."
"Well," she replied, switching her paperback to the other hand, "maybe not terrible. But it sure is inconvenient. Like life isn't complicated enough. You should at least be able to follow the signs." She stood up, stretching. "Oh, and on your way, watch out for the big hole. It's right past the sculpture, and it's a doozy. Stick to the left." Then she patted my hood, smiled at me, and walked back to her lawn chair.
"Thank you," I called out after her, and she waved at me over her shoulder. I turned around in the road and started down Sweetbud Drive, mindful that somewhere up ahead there was both a sculpture and a big hole. I saw the sculpture first.
It was on the side of the narrow drive, in a clearing between two trees. Made of rusted metal, it was huge—at least six feet across—shaped like an open hand. It was encircled by a piece of rebar with a bicycle chain woven around its edges, like some sort of garland. In the palm of the hand, a heart shape had been cut out, and a smaller heart, painted bright red, hung within it, spinning slightly in the breeze that was blowing. I just sat there, my car barely crunching over the gravel, and stared at it. I couldn't help but think I had seen that design somewhere before.
And then I hit the hole.
Clunk! went my front left wheel, disappearing into it entirely. O-kay, I thought, as my entire car tilted to one side, this must be why she called it a doozy.
I was sitting there, trying to think of a way I could get myself out somehow and save the embarrassment of having to make such an entrance, when I looked up ahead and saw someone walking toward me from a house at the end of the road. It was just getting dark, so at first it was hard to make them out. Only when he was right in front of my wildly slanting front bumper did I realize it was Wes.
"Whatever you do," he called out, "don't try and reverse out of it. That only makes it worse." Then, as he got closer, he looked at me and started slightly. I wasn't sure who he'd been expecting, but obviously it was a surprise seeing me. "Hey," he said.
"Hi." I swallowed. "I'm, um—"