“Oh, Win,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.”
“Just the one,” he implored. “For old times’ sake. I know you aren’t mine and I’m not yours, so I probably don’t have a right to ask you to do anything. But I hate seeing you so frail.”
This might have hurt my feelings, but it was said in an incredibly kind way. Besides, I knew how I looked. I was bones and messy hair and scars. I wasn’t trying to starve myself in some dramatic fashion. I was tired and I hurt and that took up the time I used to devote to feeding myself. “Do you truly think that one strawberry will make a difference?”
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
I leaned my head down and took the strawberry from his hand. For a fraction of a second, I let my lips rest on his palm. I took the strawberry in my mouth. The flavor was sweet, but delicate and strange, wild and a bit tart.
He took his hand back and closed it with resolve. A second later, he left without another word.
I picked up the carton, and I ate another strawberry.
The next afternoon, he brought me an orange. He peeled it and offered me a single section in the same way he had offered me that strawberry. He set the rest of the orange on the table and then he left.
And the afternoon after that, he brought me a kiwi. He took out a knife and removed its skin. He cut it into seven even slices and set a single one on his hand.
“Wherever did you get a kiwi?” I asked.
“I have my ways,” he said.
And then he brought me an enormous peach—pinkish orange and perfect, without a single bruise. He took a knife from his pocket. He was about to cut it, but I put my hand on his. “I think I’ll eat the whole peach, but promise not to watch me. I can tell it’s going to be messy.”
“As you wish,” he said. He took out his book, and he began to read.
The juice ran down my chin and hands, as I had expected. The peach was pulpy and so good I almost felt emotional as I ate it. I laughed for what felt like the first time in months. “I’m so dirty,” I said.
He took his handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me.
“Was this from your mother’s orchard?”
“Yes, it seemed a particularly good peach, so I saved it for you. But as for the rest, I take Natty, and we trade my mother’s crops at the other farms.”
“I didn’t know this many kinds of fruit could grow in the same season?”
“See for yourself. You could come with us,” he said. “It would mean leaving this chair, though.”
“I am attached to this chair, Win. We have a relationship.”
“I can see that,” he said. “But Natty and I wouldn’t mind having your company if the chair could spare you. Your sister is worried about you.”
“I don’t want anyone to worry about me.”
“She thinks you are depressed. You don’t eat. You don’t much want to go anywhere. You are so quiet. And of course there’s the matter of this chair.”
“Why doesn’t she say this to me herself?”
“You’re not the easiest person in the world to talk to.”
“What do you mean? I’m easy to talk to.”
“No, you’re not. Once upon a time, I was your boyfriend, or have you forgotten?” His hand was hanging over the side of his chair and his fingertips grazed mine. I moved my hand.
Suddenly, he stood and offered me his hand. “Come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
“Win, I’d like to but I move pretty slow now.”
“It’s summer in upstate New York, Annie. Nothing moves very fast.” He offered me his hand.
I looked at the hand, then I looked at the boy attached to it. I was a bit scared. In those days, I didn’t like to go places I hadn’t been before.
“You still trust me, don’t you?”
I grabbed my cane from under my chair and then I took his hand.
We walked maybe a half mile, which was a long way when your foot did not move without a reminder.
“Are you sorry you asked me to come with you yet?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I am sorry for quite a few things when it comes to you, but not this.”
“Sorry you ever met me, I suppose.”
He did not reply.
I was out of breath. “Are we almost there?” I asked.
“Only about another five hundred feet. It’s in that barn right up there.”
“Is that coffee I smell?”
Indeed, Win had taken me to a coffee speakeasy. On the back counter, an antique espresso machine steamed and chirped, blithely unaware that it was in the process of manufacturing a drug. The top of the machine was a dented copper dome that reminded me of a Russian cathedral. Win ordered me a cup, and then he introduced me to the owner.
“Anya Balanchine?” the owner said. “Naw, you’re too young to be Anya Balanchine. You’re a bona fide folk hero. When are you going to do for coffee what you did for chocolate?”
“Well, I—”
“I’d like to stop running my coffee shop from a barn someday. Free coffee for Anya Balanchine. Hey Win, how’s your dad?”
“He’s running for mayor.”
“Give him my regards, would you?”
Win said he would, and the owner led us over to a wrought-iron table for two by the window.
“People are impressed with you in these parts,” Win said.
“Listen, Win, I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your vacation. I didn’t know you’d be here. Your dad said you’d only be staying for a couple of days in August.”
Win shook his head, then stirred cream into his espresso. “I’m glad to see you,” he said. “I hope I’m a little helpful to you.”
“You are helpful to me,” I said after a while. “You have always been helpful to me.”
“If you wanted more, all you would have to do is ask.”
I changed the subject. “You are a senior next year, and then medical school?”
“Yes.”
“So you must have taken premed. What’s my prognosis?”
“I’m not a doctor yet, Anya.”
“But looking at me, what do you think? I would like an honest opinion of what a person sees when he or she looks at me.”
“I think you look as if you’ve been through something unimaginably terrible,” he said finally. “However, I suspect if I met you today, if I were walking into this coffee shop, having never seen you before, I’d walk across this room and if no one was sitting across from you and maybe even if someone was, I’d take off my hat and I’d offer to buy you a cup of coffee.”
“And then you’d meet me, and you’d find out bad things about me, and you’d probably walk right out the door.”
“What things could I possibly find out?”
I looked at him. “You know. Stuff that sends a nice boy in a hat careening off in the opposite direction.”
“Maybe, maybe not. I’m still stupid when it comes to dark-haired, green-eyed girls.”
On the way back, it began to rain. It was difficult to maneuver my cane on the moist and loamy ground. “Lean into me,” he said. “I won’t let you fall.”
The next day, I went back out to the deck. I had found an old copy of Sense and Sensibility on the bookshelf in the office, and I had decided to read it.
“You read a lot these days,” Win said.
“I’ve taken it up now that I’m a shut-in.”
“Well, I won’t interrupt you,” he said.
He lay down on the chair next to mine and picked up his book.