Good Faith by Jane Smiley

Author:Jane Smiley [Smiley, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

From the window of my office, I watched Hank turn east toward Portsmouth and then jumped in my car and drove immediately in the opposite direction, toward their house. I did not call ahead. Whoever was there or not there, I would deal with it. I was a Realtor. At any time of the day or night, I could be driving down any road in the county on perfectly legitimate business.

Felicity’s road looked especially scenic. The leafless dark branches of the encroaching trees opened upward toward the bright sky, and the plowed snow along either side of the blacktop was as clean and billowy as clouds. Sunshine poured down. Red barn here. Green barn there. Two furry ponies eating hay by the side of the road.

Felicity’s house looked peaceful, dappled with moving patches of light. The front porch was gently subsiding away from the house. I hadn’t noticed that in the summer. One car was parked in the driveway, her car, the BMW. The driveway was not meticulously shoveled, the way my parents’ was and the way my office was. Bluish tire marks snaked over areas of flattened snow. I opened my car door, but then I just sat there for a moment, hoping her face would appear in the window and she would wave me inside. It did not. I got up out of the car and closed the door. I went to the front, stood on the porch, used the knocker, and pushed the doorbell. No answer. Then I used my knuckles. Quiet. I went off the porch, traipsed through the snow, went to the back door, knocked, peered in. Chairs were pushed back from the table. One pair of boots stood by the stove, and another had been pushed under the table. There was a plate on the table, and a fork on the plate. At the exact moment I was thinking that maybe there was a side to Felicity that I didn’t want to see, a side that contrasted to her beautiful free side but that was inextricably linked to it, I heard her voice in my ear, saying, “What are you doing?”

I jumped. “Looking for you.”

“I was in the barn.” She was cocooned in a navy blue goose-down coat, her hair hidden under the torpedolike hood and her hands in her pockets. I put my arms around her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead, but I could tell she wasn’t happy to see me. I said, “Hank said he was going to be in Portsmouth all afternoon, so I seized the moment.”

“Hi.” She softened a little and smiled at last. After a moment, she turned her face up and kissed me, but her hands were still in her pockets. She said, “How was your lunch?”

“We agreed to disagree. Who do you agree with?”

She looked at me for a long moment and then softened a little more, reaching up and kissing me again. She said, “Not you, dear.”

“You don’t think we should develop the farm?”

“Now that you ask, no.

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