Walk on by, Sam started thinking, because after only a few weeks, he could already feel his body molding into the indentation in the driver’s seat left by Eli’s inert form, positioned in the very same place for so many years. But as it turned out, Boynton Beach would have to wait. Sam would be staying in Unity, at least for the time being. It seemed he had a passenger.
“Lucky you’re here,” the passenger said. He was a little out of breath and he wasn’t as well dressed as Sam had first thought. It was an old suit, actually, but who was Sam to judge? He himself was wearing a frayed sweater and a pair of chinos stained with coffee. “I thought there’d be a car rental place,” the fellow said.
“In Unity? You’ve got the wrong town. Wait a second, maybe you do have the wrong town,” Sam joked, angling for a tip later on. “Who is it you’re going to see?”
When the passenger said he was just passing through and thought he’d find a motel, Sam Dewey told him, once again, wrong town. The closest motel was the Night Owl in North Arthur, so if it were lodgings he wanted, his best bet was Laurie Frost’s guesthouse. Laurie was Enid the ticket-taker’s daughter, and quite attractive; Sam wouldn’t mind if she felt grateful enough for this referral to say yes if he asked her out to dinner. Laurie’s guesthouse was really a converted garage, but it looked fine to most people’s eyes, and Sam waited as his passenger walked up the slate path bordered by hostas. He stood outside, leaning up against the taxi, where he smoked a cigarette and nodded as a man ran past.
“Slow down,” Sam called out to the runner, feeling quite neighborly as Will Avery went by. Will was not in the least deterred by the fact that Laurie’s house was at the top of a hill, but he didn’t want to waste any energy in speaking. “Save your energy! Take a taxi!” Sam suggested, but Will only waved and kept on, as he did every morning on his sweep through Unity.
When Sam’s passenger returned, he wanted to drive around a bit, see the town. He sneezed several times. “Damn it,” he said as they headed back down the hill.
“It’s the pollen.” Sam cast himself in the role of local expert. “The lilacs, the grass, all the wildflowers. Pollen everywhere you look. My guess, you’re a city boy.”
The passenger described a historic house he’d heard about, one built like a wedding cake, and Sam Dewey assured him it wouldn’t be a problem to drive over and take a look. Of course, without an address, Sam had no idea of where to go, so he drove around awhile, circling the town and wondering how much he could charge for this tour. He stopped for a minute outside Town Hall, ran in, and quickly scanned the map posted in the hall which listed points of interest. Cake House. The earliest surviving building in town. It had to be that.
They drove past the old oak, surrounded by orange cones, for the branches were now dangerously brittle on one side, down Lockhart, to reach what some people called Dead Horse Lane.
“Can’t go any farther,” Sam Dewey said. At least they could see the three chimneys from here, and a bit of the roofline as well. “My cab would never make it past the ruts they’ve got. Look at that one!” He pointed to a hole in the driveway so deep it was filled with water. What appeared to be a large stone, but was in fact a snapping turtle, was in the center of the mudhole. “I’d break my axle on that.”
The passenger paid and got out. This time he told Sam not to bother to wait. He let Sam Dewey believe he’d checked into the guesthouse, when all he’d done was pick up the copy of the Unity Tribune that was on Laurie Frost’s doorstep and stick it in his backpack. He didn’t want to appear to be a drifter, although that, in fact, was what he was these days. He liked to walk, he told the nosy cabdriver, and that seemed to satisfy Sam Dewey and send him on his way. The passenger walked down the driveway, past the mud puddle. There was the white house that looked so much like the model he’d taken from the table in the front hall of the apartment on Marlborough Street. There was the very same porch, the windows with their funny bumpy panes of glass, the hedges of laurel that were so sweet the bees that hovered around the blooms were groggy, unlike the felt ones on the model’s laurels, bees stuck on with glue, with wings that never moved.
One thing he’d said was true: he was just passing through. He’d need a place to rest though, so he turned into the woods. In fact, he wasn’t a city boy as that idiot taxi driver had deduced. He’d been raised in the north, far up in New Hampshire, and there he’d stayed until his girlfriend had broken his heart and moved to Boston. In time he had followed her; he’d won her back, but she’d cast him aside again. Twice was once too many times to do that to him.