He told me he would be at the Grandor Fair in Grandor, Maine, over the weekend and told me to text him when I arrived.
The clarity and confidence of the note compelled me even more to go. Grandor was a five-and-a-half-hour drive without traffic. Doable in one day. So I marked the date and the location in my calendar and found myself smiling as I texted your father about my plans. It was just such a rush to get out of my own head.
The town of Grandor was familiar, though I had never been there. I searched for the phone number for Box Designs and pulled out my phone to send a text.
When I arrived, I texted him that I was ready to see his furniture.
I placed my phone in my lap and waited for the buzz of a response from Silas. I rolled down the car window and felt a surge of happiness as I inhaled the clear air of Grandor. I observed the sights and sounds of the market. All the white tents propped up and people moving in between them. The gentle buzz of voices meeting. The piles of brightly colored fruits and vegetables. I looked at my phone again, but it was still blank. So I got out of the car and slowly joined the crowd. I looked left and right for the furniture I had seen on the website. Those sturdy masculine lines. Those smooth and durable surfaces.
A tent filled with honey sticks caught my eye. You know how much I love honey sticks. You probably remember me bringing you some when you were little. A row of clear jars filled with sticks of all different colors and flavors lined the rickety white foldout table. I traded a nickel for a root beer–flavored stick. I have to admit, I considered the calories in a single stick, but quickly dismissed the thought and nibbled on the edge to open it.
What was a little indulgence? My body filled with a warmth as soon as the sweet honey hit my tongue. These were a favorite treat ever since I was a little girl. I pinched my index finger and thumb at the bottom of the plastic, pressing more delicious honey onto my tongue. I closed my eyes to savor the taste.
At that very moment, my phone buzzed.
Silas told me where his booth was at the market, and then I’ll never forget what he followed up with. He said he was six foot two with black curly hair and very good-looking.
On the basis of no evidence at all, I interpreted the text to be an expression of Silas’s typical boldness.
If I am being honest, as soon as I received that text, I felt my cheeks get just a little warm. It was the kind of flirting that almost certainly should have seemed outrageous. I was a married woman, after all.
I tucked my phone into my back pocket, smoothed my shirt out so I’d look professional and walked in the direction of his booth.
Now, flash forward to the evening. The first time that night that I looked down at my phone to check the hour, it was already well after midnight. The edges of the numbers on the digital clock appeared blurry. I brought the back of my hand up to rub my eye. I wasn’t inebriated enough to break my rule of touching my own face with oily fingertips. I smiled delicately in celebration of myself, how truly I had stuck to my values even in this seedy bar in a town I had never heard of with a man I had never met before. Admittedly, I hoped the shape of my smile appeared sexy. Sultry. Mysterious, maybe. I had probably never been mysterious to anybody in my entire life, not even your father, but I felt I could be anyone here on this adventure of mine.
I brought my eyes to meet Silas’s across the table. Those churning, passionate green eyes drew me in. I could smell his musty, sylvan scent from here. His thick fingers with dirty nails were clutching his beer as his forearm lay heavy against the wooden table. He was strong and tall and sexy, with his torn flannel shirt and work boots.
I was surprised to find myself attracted to this kind of man, but my heart could not lie. It was exciting. I considered whether it was just the tequila, or perhaps the classic rock crackling through the barely functioning speakers on the jukebox. But it was equally likely my own body aching for another man. Aching for another life. Longing for another man that would bring with it another life.
I felt an impulse to curl my fingers around his wrist, but instead my hand instinctively moved back to check that all my hair was still in place, wrapped in a tight little bun at the nape of my neck, but it wasn’t. I could feel chunks of hair spewing out every which way and I thought for a moment about whether I should care. Usually I would excuse myself at the slightest stray lock, but I couldn’t pass up the moment of trying a new life on temporarily. I brought my fingertips to the tip of my hair clip and tugged it loose to release the rest of my hair. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so much hair across my cheeks. It felt so wonderful.
Silas chuckled and mocked me just a little bit. He said something like, “Really letting loose, aren’t you?”
I didn’t like that I was so easily identified for what I was behind the guise of my tequila buzz and my newly unleashed hair. But it was true I was not accustomed either to letting loose or to places with sticky floors and cheap decor. I had always been rewarded in my life for keeping things together. I had never before considered that beauty didn’t mean pristine.
I considered showing my annoyance, but when Silas smiled, the deep seductive green of his eyes ignited. He sat back and pressed the chair onto its two back legs, the toes of his work boots gently hovering over the floor.
I gasped and lunged over the table, trying to make sure he didn’t fall.
Silas laughed as he brought the chair back to its stable position on the ground.
He brought his hand onto my hand.
He told me to relax, through his charming smile. The feeling of another man’s hand on my hand was so stingingly exciting. No one in my life had ever been so freely affectionate like that. Everyone had been nice and polite and thoughtful, but not affectionate. Not my parents. Not Parker. Not anyone. It surprised me that someone could just touch me at any moment. That someone could pick up my hand as thoughtlessly as picking up a shoelace to tie it. It set my entire existence on fire.
I sank back into my own chair, embarrassed by my own histrionics and the buzz in my veins, which I was sure was apparent to anyone within miles. I felt determined to push the conversation back onto Silas. I crossed my arms over my chest and looked down to make sure my arms pressed my breasts up. I think by this time I knew where I wanted the night to go. I hope you don’t think any less of me, or your father, because of this.
I asked what Silas was doing building a life up in Grandor. He stared down into his beer and told me that it was “nice living up here.” I could tell he didn’t want to say much more.
It was as if he had some kind of invisible boundary surrounding him. Protecting him. A line not meant to be crossed. Not by anyone. But the tequila and the bits of chest hair peeking out from Silas’s shirt had me emboldened.
I asked him what he meant by “nice.” A lot of places were nice and he didn’t live in them.
It felt exciting to be so sassy, so outspoken, so bold. I was a different woman that night in Grandor. It really felt like that.