Lucky in Love

Sharon used to drive her husband crazy on road trips. She wanted to stop at every historical marker, every kitschy display, every vegetable stand. He just wanted to get to their destination as quickly as possible.

The divorce didn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Road trips were just one symptom of a bigger problem.

Once everything was final, Sharon started driving aimlessly on the weekends. She loved being able to stop whenever she wanted, with no one sighing or groaning or tapping his watch. Sure, she got lonely sometimes. She hoped she’d eventually find a partner who liked exploring the world with her. In the meantime, she got out on the back roads as much as possible, trying to make up for all the interesting stops she’d been forced to pass up before.

Of course she stopped when she saw the wooden head in the yard. How could she not?

Sharon pulled her car onto the shoulder, parked and got out to take a closer look. Someone had carved it, apparently, from a large chunk of tree trunk. It was roughly done but somehow magnetic. Sharon didn’t feel able to take her eyes off it.

“One-fifty,” a voice said.

Sharon straightened up in a hurry. A man in jeans and flannel had come around the side of the house while she’d been distracted. He didn’t look dangerous, but Sharon backed up a step anyway, just in case. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to trespass. I just couldn’t help stopping to look at this.”

“It’s for sale,” he said. “A hundred and fifty bucks. Heck, I could go one twenty-five.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. I live in an apartment. It’s good work, though. You’re talented.”

He laughed. “I didn’t make it. I was just driving around one day and saw it in the yard of the guy who did make it. He told me it was one-fifty, and it would make me lucky in love. Figured I couldn’t pass that up.”

Sharon smiled. “And did it work?”

“Not a bit. That’s why I decided to sell it. Maybe it’ll work better for you.”

“I doubt that.” But as soon as she said it, she wondered.

“One hundred, and I’ll haul it out and put it on your balcony.”

She hesitated. “Did you say you were driving around and had to stop when you saw this?”

“Sure. Same as you, I guess. How could you drive by something interesting and not stop?”

“That’s right,” she said. She realized she was grinning. “I guess maybe I could find space for it on my balcony, if it’s going to make me lucky in love. And if you haul it out there, the least I could do is treat you to dinner.”

“Well, I wouldn’t turn that down.”

She held out her hand. “I’m Sharon.”

“Mike,” he said, and they shook.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mike,” she said. And oh, it really was. 

Solitude

Carla saw the movie version of Annie when she was seven years old. Despite all the singing, dancing and cute orphans, the part that struck her was when Daddy Warbucks took Annie to see a movie, and he bought out the whole theater so they had it to themselves.

“Why did he do that?” she asked her mom.

“Well, he’s got lots of extra money. I guess he didn’t want to deal with other people.”

Carla thought that was the best idea she’d ever heard. She decided right then that she wanted the kind of money that meant she never had to deal with other people.

Unfortunately, she discovered as she grew that earning money usually entailed dealing with other people, and she wasn’t very good at that. Carla didn’t end up with the kind of money that allowed her to buy out theaters or rent amusement parks for her own use. She did, however, have the next best thing. She discovered a picnic area that no one else knew about.

There was never anyone there.

Never. Anyone.

It was true the place was hard to find. She kind of had to hold her teeth right and squint at the perfect moment to spot the dirt track running off the main road. Carla never would have found it if she hadn’t been desperate to be somewhere secret, somewhere she could be alone.

The first time she went there, she was enchanted to see a picnic area that seemed to have been reserved just for her. She figured she’d hit it at an off time, though. Surely it wouldn’t always be deserted.

The second time, when she took a picnic out there on her lunch hour, she was thrilled to find she still had it to herself. She started taking her lunch out there every day. She always found blessed, peaceful solitude. It seemed the place really had been reserved just for her.

Eventually, Carla started packing her dinner and going to the picnic area after work, as well. She began thinking of it as her own place, something she’d bought with a currency more powerful than money. When the idea came to her that she ought to buy a tent and spend the night there, too, it seemed perfectly right. Even then, no one bothered her.

Finally, Carla stopped leaving. If the place was magic, as she half suspected, she might leave one day and not be able to find it again. She’d rather die out there than risk that. She’d gradually brought in supplies, so she had everything she needed. She could build a fire. There was water on the other side of the hill. She ate wild dandelions and native pecans and the squirrels she managed to catch.

No one ever found her. No one ever bothered her. And that was just fine with Carla. 

Of Wardrobes and Magic

I took this picture because the statue reminded me of my favorite childhood story. You might think I mean Peter Cottontail or The Velveteen Rabbit or The Runaway Bunny, but no. I’m talking about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

If you’ve read the book (or seen the movie, for that matter, though people who watch instead of read make me sad) you remember what the White Witch did to her enemies. She turned them to stone with one wave of her magic wand. I always thought it was a horrible fate—left frozen to be aware time was passing, but not able to join in. I’d have felt better if she’d just killed people.

The moment I saw this statue, I thought he looked like one of the White Witch’s victims. I don’t actually remember if there were any rabbits discussed among her statues, but I suppose my thinking first of Narnia says more about what the book meant to me than it does about this statue’s resemblance to any particular character. Narnia was one of the most important parts of my childhood.

I was seven when I first read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I was 37 when I last read it—it’s one of those stories I have to pull out and revisit from time to time. I imagine anyone who attaches a particular significance to books and literature probably first developed that love during childhood. I would guess we each have a particular story we can point to as the one that first showed us what a magical world books could be.

I remember one of my favorite games in the years after I first visited Narnia. I would go into my closet and shut the door—and how I wished for an actual wardrobe! I spent a minute in there, stumbling around and pretending I couldn’t find the back. When I came out, I pretended I was in the magical land of Narnia, where animals could talk (though my hamster never managed the trick) and danger lurked everywhere.

The magic doesn’t end with childhood books, of course. I still sink into magical worlds, especially if Stephen King or Jasper Fforde is writing them. Nothing matches the wonder of the first time, though—because it was a new experience, because a seven-year-old is more prone to believing in magic. Narnia has earned a forever spot in my heart. It’s what I always think of when I feel surrounded by wonder and have a sense of the world as a thin curtain. And really, the story is a perfect analogy of the magic of reading. You open a book cover instead of a wardrobe door, but you still find a new and exciting world on the other side.

So forgive me if every stone statue makes me feel sorry for the White Witch’s victims and every closed door seems to be an invitation to discovery. I can’t help but see magic in the world—I’m a reader.

Riding the Rails

The question came up occasionally as an ice breaker at parties—what’s the first thing you would do if you won the lottery? Jake’s answer was always the same.

“I’d buy an old caboose,” he’d say. The other people at the party would see the dreamy intensity in his eyes and know this was something he’d put a lot of thought into. “I’d have it set up in the back yard and turn it into my writing studio.”

He knew, somehow, he’d be able to write better in a room like that than in the corner of the dining room he used for his office now. The words would chug right along like a train going down the tracks. He wouldn’t have any more fits and starts, squeezing the words out one at a time with each one causing cramps in his brain. He’d be like King or Oates, so prolific the publishing world couldn’t keep up with his output.

Jake never won the lottery, and he never managed to finish a book, but by the time he was ready to retire he’d saved a nice chunk of change. He found an old caboose for sale and got his wife to agree to the purchase, provided he had it set up where no one could see it from the street. So that was what he did.

On the first day of his retirement, Jake finished his breakfast, packed himself a sack lunch and went out to his studio. He had a place to write and now he had the time to write. He would finally be able to write the way he’d always wanted to.

The words didn’t come any easier. He supposed, deep down, he wasn’t surprised.

That didn’t mean he was disappointed with the caboose, though. The caboose was perfect. Now, when the words weren’t there, instead of staring at a blank wall feeling stupid he could look out the window and pretend he was a hobo riding the rails, or James Bond on the trail of a criminal, or a war hero coming home to his sweetheart. He might only commit 200 words to paper during a day in his studio, but he lived so many stories in his head he felt as if he’d had a productive and adventurous day.

Jake was thankful they didn’t need more money, because he knew he’d never make any as a writer. He was happy, though. When he came back to the house in the afternoons and showed his wife just how happy he was feeling these days, she agreed the caboose was the smartest purchase they’d ever made. 

Monsters With a License

She wasn’t expecting to see a snake out here, and so—at first—she didn’t. At first she saw an old sweater someone had abandoned when his walk in greenbelt behind their neighborhood made him too hot. Then the sweater raised its head and stuck its tongue out at her, and Cheri barely managed to suppress a scream.

Cheri didn’t know much about snakes, but she knew enough to be sure this wasn’t a local specimen. It may have escaped from a zoo. More likely, it was an exotic pet escaped from one of the homes along here. She’d walked a long way from her house, so she didn’t know anyone who lived in this part of the neighborhood. She scanned the backs of the houses she could see, wondering which of them had harbored this monster, wondering whether there were others around as well. Probably. The kind of person who’d choose this creature over a dog wouldn’t be satisfied with just one.

She’d just made a careful note of her exact location—the better to give details to Animal Control—and was backing slowly away when she heard someone say, “Don’t worry. He’s friendly.”

Cheri turned around. A boy with grass-stained jeans crouched in the bushes nearby. “Is this thing yours?” She tried to sound neutral but her voice came out more like that of a nun confronting a teenager with a pack of condoms.

“His name’s Herbert. He’s trained; he won’t bite.” As if to prove it, the boy crossed to the snake, picked it up and draped it over his shoulders.

“Are you crazy?” Cheri screeched.

The snake flicked its tongue out to brush the boy’s cheek. He grinned. “Herbert’s my pet. He’s got a cage in my room, but I like to bring him out here to stretch out sometimes. It makes him happy.” Then, incredibly, he turned his head to face the snake and continued in a baby voice. “Doesn’t it make you happy, Herbie?” he said, and planted a kiss on the snake’s head.

Cheri backed away from them. “That thing is not a pet. I’m calling Animal Control.”

The boy just laughed. “My dad got a license,” he said. He and the snake turned and walked up the hill toward the houses.

Cheri watched him go. At first she thought she would see which house he went into—she might call Animal Control anyway—but then she decided she really didn’t want to know. She turned and hurried back toward her end of the greenbelt.

She knew one thing for sure. From now on, she was taking her walks in the other direction.