She sat, his hands on her shoulders, and found, shockingly, a chair underneath her behind. A smooth metal folding chair.
Wayne then unknotted the blindfold. He whipped it away. Happy anniversary! he said.
Jenny squinted in the revealed light, but only for a moment. She opened her eyes wide and saw she was sitting, as she’d thought, in a meadow, maybe fifty yards across, surrounded on all sides by tall green trees, all of them rippling in the wind. In front of her was a card table covered with a red-and-white checked tablecloth. The table was set with dishes — their good china, the plates at least — and two wineglasses, all wedding presents they’d only used once, on her birthday. Wayne sat in a chair opposite her, grinning, eyebrows arched. The wind blew his hair straight up off his head.
A picnic, she said. Wayne, that’s lovely, thank you.
She reached her hand across the table and grasped his. He was exasperating sometimes, but no other man she’d met could reach this level of sweetness. He’d lugged all this stuff out into the middle of nowhere for her — that’s where he must have been all afternoon.
You’re welcome, he said. The red spots on his cheeks spread and deepened. He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles, then her wedding ring. He rubbed the places where he’d kissed with his thumb.
He said, I’m sorry that dinner won’t be as fancy as the plates, but I really couldn’t get anything but sandwiches out here.
That’s fine. She laughed. I’ve eaten your cooking, and we’re better off with sandwiches.
Ouch, he said. He faked a European accent: This kitten, she has the claws. But I have the milk that will tame her.
He bent and rummaged through a paper bag near his chair and produced a bottle of red with a flourish and a cocked eyebrow. She couldn’t help but laugh.
Not entirely chilled, he said, but good enough. He uncorked it and poured her a glass.
A toast.
To what?
To the first part of the surprise.
There’s more?
He smiled slyly, lifted his glass, then said, After dinner.
He’d won her over; she didn’t question it. Jenny lifted her g lass, clinked rims with her husband’s, and sat back with her legs crossed at the knee. Wayne bent and dug in the bag again, and then came up with sliced wheat bread and cheese and a package of carved roast beef in deli paper. He made her a sandwich, even slicing up a fresh tomato. They ate in the pleasant breeze.
After dinner he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his stomach. When they’d first started dating, she thought he did it to be funny; but really, he did it after eating anything larger than a candy bar. She was willing to bet he’d been doing it since he was a toddler. It meant all was well in the land of Wayne. The gesture made her smile, and she looked away. Since they’d married he’d developed a small wedge of belly; she wondered — not unhappily, not here — if in twenty years he’d have a giant stomach to rub, like his father’s.
So I was right? she asked. This is your parents’ woods?
Nope, he said, smiling.
It’s not?
It was. They don’t own it anymore.
They sold it? When? To who?
Yesterday. He was grinning broadly, now. To me. To us.
She sat forward, then back. He glanced around at the trees, his hair tufting in a sudden gust of the wind.
You’re serious, she said. Her stomach tightened. This was a feeling she’d had a few times since their wedding — she was learning that the more complicated Wayne’s ideas were, the less likely they were to be good ones. A picnic in the woods? Fine. But this?
I’m serious, Wayne said. This is my favorite place in the world — second favorite, I mean. He winked at her, then went on: But either way. Both my favorite places are mine, now. Ours.
She touched a napkin to her lips. So, she said. How much did — did we pay for our woods?
A dollar. He laughed and said, Can you believe it? Dad wanted to give it to us, but I told him, No, Pop, I want to buy it. We ended up compromising.
She could only stare at him. He squeezed her hand and said, We’re landowners now, honey. One square mile.
That’s—
Dad wanted to sell it off, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it going to somebody who was going to plow it all under.
We need to pay your parents more than a dollar, Wayne. That’s absurd.
That’s what I told them. But Dad said no, we needed the money more. But honey — there’s something else. That’s only part of the surprise.
Jenny twined her fingers together in front of her mouth. A suspicion had formed, and she hoped he wasn’t about to do what she guessed. Wayne was digging beside his chair again. He came up with a long roll of paper, blueprint paper, held with a rubber band. He put it on the table between them.
Our paper anniversary, he said.
What is this?
Go ahead. Look at it.
Jenny knew what the plans would show. She rolled the rubber band off the blueprints, her mouth dry. Wayne stood, his hands quick and eager, and spread the prints flat on the tabletop. They were upside down; she went around the table and stood next to him. He put a hand on the small of her back.
The blueprints were for a house. A simple two-story house — the ugliest thing she had ever seen.
I didn’t want to tell you too soon, he said, but I got a raise at the bank. Plus, now that I’ve been there three years, I get a terrific deal on home loans. I got approval three days ago.
A house, she said.
They were living in an apartment in Kinslow, nice enough but bland, sharing a wall with an old woman who complained if they spoke above a whisper or if they played rock ’n’ roll records. Jenny put a hand to her hair. Wayne, she said, where is this house going to be?
Here, he said and grinned again. He held his arms out. Right here. The table is on the exact spot. The contractors start digging on Monday. The timing’s perfect. It’ll be done by the end of summer.
Here... in the woods.
Yep.
He laughed, watching her face, and said, We’re only three miles from town. The interstate’s just on the other side of the field to the south. The county road is paved. All we have to do is have them expand the path in and we’ll have a driveway. It’ll be our hideaway. Honey?
She sat down in the chair he’d been sitting in. She could barely speak. They had talked about buying a house soon — but one in town. They’d also talked about moving to Indianapolis, about leaving Kinslow — maybe not right away, but within five years.
Wayne, she said. Doesn’t this all feel kind of... permanent?
Well, he said, it’s a house. It’s supposed to.
We just talked last month. You wanted to get a job in the city. I want to live in the city. A five-year plan, remember?
Yeah. I do.
He knelt next to her chair and put his arm across her shoulders.
But I’ve been thinking, he said. The bank is nice, really nice, and the money just got better, and then Dad was talking about getting rid of the land, and I couldn’t bear to hear it, and—
And so you went ahead and did it without asking me.
Um, Wayne said, it seemed like such a great deal that—
Okay, she told him. OK. It is a great deal. If it was just buying the woods, that would be wonderful. But the house is different. What it means is that you’re building your dream house right in the spot I want to move away from. I hate to break it to you, but that means it’s not quite my dream house.
Wayne removed his hand from her shoulders and clasped his fingers in front of his mouth. She knew that gesture, too.
Wayne—
I really thought this would make you happy, he said.
A house does make me happy. But one in Kinslow. One we can sell later and not feel bad about when we move—
She wasn’t sure what happened next. Wayne told her it was an accident, that he stood up too fast and hit his shoulder on the table. And it looked that way, sometimes, when she thought back on it. But when it happened she was sure he flung his arm out, that he knocked the table aside, that he did it on purpose. The wineglasses and china plates flew out and disappeared into the clumps of yellow grass; she heard a crash. The blueprints caught in a tangle with the tablecloth and the other folding chair.