Red Leaves

Kristina pumped her fist in the air. Her long fingers felt better clenched. Felt warmer. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’m an adult now.’

‘You have been an adult all the time I have known you,’ said Howard.

‘Yes, but before you,’ Kristina said, ‘I was a child.’

‘Must have been a long time ago,’ he said sadly.

Kristina felt sad herself hearing him say that. ‘Not so long ago, Howard.’ Her nose was running, and she breathed heavily out of her mouth.

Howard was quiet for a moment and then hugged her. ‘Good-bye, Kristina,’ he said quietly.

The words stuck in her throat. ‘Good-bye, Howard,’ she said, patting his coat. She didn’t want him to see tears in her eyes.

When he got into his car, Kristina turned away.

After he was gone, she stood motionless on the sidewalk, squinting into the sun. I miss him already, she thought. I must call him and wish him a merry Christmas in a few weeks.

She was pleased with how the lunch went, but mostly she was glad it was over.

Kristina looked at the Nugget Theatre behind her. The Age of Innocence was playing. She thought briefly of going to see it; she even checked the time, but it had already started and it was a long film. The next show wasn’t until five, and by that time Jim Shaw with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics under his arm would be waiting. Afterward there was Albert’s hazelnut torte. Besides, hadn’t Frankie seen the film and told her it was a movie about cutlery? Hadn’t he said the utensils in that film really shined in starring roles?

But she still wanted to see it. Daniel Day-Lewis reminded her of Edinburgh, where Kristina had seen My Left Foot.

She slowly walked to the Dartmouth Review office. As she went up the stairs, her gaze passed the window of the Rare Essentials boutique. She saw a pair of black boots in the window. Nice.

The death penalty could wait.

She walked inside. An attractive saleslady came up to her and asked her if she needed help.

‘I’m all right,’ Kristina said. ‘I like the boots.’

‘Oh, they’re very nice,’ the saleslady chimed. ‘They’re from Canada.’

Oh, from Canada, Kristina said, smiling. Then they must be nice. She examined them and then asked to see them in size nine and a half. The lady didn’t have a nine and a half but she had a ten. The boots fit her loosely. Still, they were quite pretty and graceful, with leather shoelaces.

‘And they’re waterproof, you know,’ the saleslady said.

‘Waterproof? And from Canada, too?’ Kristina said teasingly. ‘What else can a girl want from a black boot? How much?’

‘A hundred and eight dollars.’

She didn’t have a hundred and eight dollars. She had about three bucks in cash.

Kristina paid for the boots with her American Express card. That gave her six weeks to come up with a hundred and eight dollars. She could do that, she thought, smiling to herself.

‘Kristina Kim,’ the saleslady said, ringing the card through. ‘That’s an unusual name.’

Kristina signed her name on the charge slip. ‘You think so?’

‘It’s got a nice ring to it,’ the saleslady said, giving the card back to her. ‘It sounds… I don’t know. Asian?’

Kristina looked steadily at the saleslady. ‘Do I look Asian to you?’

‘Of course not. It’s just that -’

‘Have a nice day,’ said Kristina, taking her bag with the black boots and leaving the store. Geez.

She liked her new boots so much she wanted to wear them right away. Had Howard said there was a snowstorm coming? She hadn’t walked her stone wall this year. Maybe during this snowstorm would be her first time. First time in her new black boots.

Kristina sat down at the head of the stairs that led to the Review offices housed in the Chamber of Commerce building and started to unlace her Adidas.

Spencer Patrick O’Malley had just finished his usual Sunday lunch at Molly’s Balloon, the same Sunday lunch he’d been having every Sunday for five years. Spencer was nothing if not a creature of habit. He laid his parka next to him on the chair, and when the waitress came over, she smiled provocatively and said, ‘Hiya, Tracy.’

‘Hi, Kelly,’ he said, thinking the girl would get much further with him if she would only call him Spencer.

‘The usual today?’

‘The usual today will be fine,’ he said.

The waitress brought him a margarita on the rocks with extra salt on the rim, then Molly’s Skins - excellent potato skins - and a side of guacamole with chips and a beef burrito. For dessert he had Key lime pie.

On his way out, Spencer was delayed after bumping into a seven-year-old girl who suddenly started screaming. It took him a few seconds to notice two of her fingers were stuck in the crack of the door. He helped get her fingers out and brought her inside with his arm around her while the girl continued to cry. The waitress got her some ice for the bruised fingers, and then the girl’s mother came upstairs from the bathroom. Everybody thanked him, and Spencer left, thinking how tough it was with kids. One minute, everything was peachy, the next - you don’t know what’s going on.

With his hands in his pockets, Spencer strolled down Main Street, debating whether or not to take a walk to Occom Pond a mile away. It was cold and windy, but he was dressed for it. His sheepskin parka, knit cap, and gloves kept him warm, but even with the jacket buttoned up to the last button and his hands in his pockets, and a union suit underneath his jeans and sweater, his face hurt from the cold.

Occasionally, during the bitter cold winters of New Hampshire, Spencer wished he had driven south on 1-95 when he headed west from his hometown on Long Island to find work elsewhere. It hadn’t mattered to him then where he was going, so why had he chosen to stop in this sleepy little town with white buildings, black shutters, and impossibly cold winters?

Wondering how long it would take to get frostbite on his face in this weather, Spencer stroked his chin. He was unshaven today, a luxury he allowed himself only on Sundays and only since he’d stopped going to church.

Spencer was walking up Main past the Chamber of Commerce building when he saw a girl sitting at the top of the stairs. It wasn’t the girl he noticed, for it was too cold to notice anything peripherally with his big hood up. No, it wasn’t the girl. What drew his attention was what the girl was doing. She was barefoot, with not even a pair of socks to keep her soles from touching the cement stairs. She was wearing shorts. Next to her stood a black leather boot; the other black boot was in her hands.

It must have been in the teens with the wind-chill factor that afternoon. Spencer felt measurably colder just looking at her. One of her feet was planted firmly on the stair while the other was crossed over her knee as she was trying to pull the black boot up. she was struggling with it, finally putting the foot down on the stair and trying to pull up the boot that way.

As if hypnotized, Spencer walked slowly toward the stairs and watched her until she got the boot on. Instead of immediately putting on the other boot, she now threaded the black laces through the holes. Her foot continued to be planted on the cement stairs. Spencer’s eyes moved up from her feet to her long, bare legs, then to her dark green. Dartmouth T-shirt, then to her face and windblown hair. Spencer took his hand out of his pocket and stroked his chin again.

Her skin was very pale, though her cheeks looked ruddy from the weather beating on them. She glanced away from the boots for a moment. Her eyes locked into his. She had a big, wonderful, oval face, a young face if you didn’t see her eyes. The melting brown eyes had deep, solemn grooves around them, making her look older. Yet the eyes themselves were black-lashed, sweet and vulnerable. The combination of the innocence of the eyes and the lines around them made for an unsettling picture.

Clearing his throat, Spencer said, ‘You know, our bodies lose one degree of heat per minute.’

‘Ahh,’ she said, the corners of her lips pulling up into a smile. ‘Thank you.’

‘Yes. And I’ve been watching you for about five minutes. Maybe six.’

She flung her hair back, her hands not letting go of the laces. ‘How do I look?’

He saw her eyes and her chapped lips smiling at him. He maintained a serious expression - it wasn’t difficult, for Spencer tried to be a serious man. ‘Cold,’ he replied.

‘Actually, according to your calculations, I should be dead by now. A degree a minute, huh?’