Stupid People Having Sex
It was a hot day when I set off for the abandoned farm stand.
Getting there required me to ride my bike up a series of hills on a surprisingly busy two-lane road with no shoulder for bicycles.
The picture came to me, as I pedaled, of what would happen if, on my way to scope out a possible rendezvous location, I got hit by a truck.
No doubt the Emersons would be sad. Forrest would probably express bafflement as to what I’d been doing, out on that highway on a day when the temperature registered ninety-five and I was supposed to be bringing the children to sailing class.
“I gave Frances the afternoon off,” Regina would tell him. “Poor thing.”
That would be the end of it. And maybe the end of her plans to track down evidence of her husband’s affair too.
I was just thinking how stupid this whole plan was, when the remains of the farm stand came into view. Regina’s directions had been perfect.
This wasn’t the only part of her project Regina had planned out efficiently, though. Just behind the falling-down wall of what had once been Murchisons’ U-Pick Blueberries ’N More—mostly hidden, but not entirely—I could make out the tail of Forrest’s Porsche.
Still a couple hundred feet from the farm stand, I got off my bike.
My heart was beating fast, naturally. Up until now, the whole idea of my doing this had been largely an abstraction, not all that different from the fantasies I’d cooked up in my journal in the early days of summer, of sexual scenarios that weren’t ever going to take place in real life.
Suddenly the whole plan had stopped being a game.
I set my bike down in the brush and walked in closer, concealed in the trees. I could hear voices now. It was clear, without seeing, what they’d been doing.
“That was amazing,” she said.
“When can I see you again?”
“Tomorrow? The ground’s too rough here,” she said. “Let’s go to our other spot next time.”
I watched them get up. He was buttoning her blouse for her. She was stroking his face. I reached in my pocket for the Polaroid camera.
It was in its case, and the zipper was stuck. As I struggled to get it open, the two of them got in the car.
By the time I got the camera out of the case, Forrest had started the engine. I lifted the camera into position, but it was too late. The Porsche had pulled out onto the road. I’d missed them.
I had no idea where the other spot was that Brenda had spoken about. On the map she’d given me, Regina had identified ten possible locations. It was also possible that none of these was the one.
A wave of terrible sadness came over me.
It wasn’t even from wishing I was the person whose face Forrest had been stroking, or my deep disappointment at confirming that the man I had admired more than any other was evidently no better than some character in a Lifetime movie or a guest on a segment of Phil Donahue.
Partly I felt sad that my magical Wonderland summer was turning into this, a series of afternoons spent riding around on my bicycle in the heat of the day, looking for Forrest’s Porsche.
Assuming I found it, I’d be scrunched in some patch of bushes, trying to get a picture of two stupid people having sex.