were filled with pickups and Volvo station wagons plastered with political and social declarations. I envied the unabashed conviction.
Things got a lot hillier when I hit the northwest corner of the Commonwealth. The Berkshires gave way to the foothills of the Green Mountains, which you ascend on narrow switchback roads that follow trout streams and old Indian trails through verdant tunnels made of hemlock and southern pine. Eventually I crested the ridge of a mountain and repeated the experience on a downward plane. Not long after that I was in Vermont.
Somewhere south of Bennington I hit Route 7 and headed north. I was relieved to be driving in a somewhat straight line, going up and over an endless succession of hills, past open fields with huge green mounds in the distance and through strange little villages of eighteenth-century inns, trailer homes and factory outlets.
Nearly hypnotized by the experience, I almost missed the sign for Route 125 East. I spun the front tires of my car over the pitted macadam as I made a hard turn and plunged into another narrow, deep wooded passage. Along the way I stopped for gas at a two-pump station outside Bread Loaf. I talked the sallow young woman behind the greasy glass-toppedcounter into filling my big paper cup with ice, over which I poured a couple fingers of bourbon and a fresh Coca-Cola.
From there it was an easy run over to Route 100 and then up to Warren where I owned a time-share that I’d never seen. Abby was the one who liked to ski, a pursuit that for me was never more than a theoretical construct. I understood the principle, something about sliding down snow-covered hills in frigid temperatures and periodically breaking your leg. It worked better for me as a vacation from my wife, who for over ten years would spend the bulk of her winter weekends and an occasional full week on the slopes.
I remembered the address from writing countless monthly checks to a place called Fox Run Borders, LLC, which always struck me as inherently contradictory. Even so, it took a lot of asking around town before I found someone to give me directions.
“Oh shoo-wa, that’s over thea towa’d the skiin’,” a red-nosed old guy in a black T-shirt and Red Sox cap told me. “Near Suga’bush. The place ya’re talkin’ about is up inna woods. Exclusive. Fulla New Yawkas.”
It was easier to find than he led me to believe, probably because of a sign on the road featuring a fox who was neither running, nor looking entirely secure within his borders. More ambivalent, which was how I was feeling.
The development looked like any suburban enclave you’d find down on the flatlands. Little two-story colonial houses with narrow clapboard siding stained a uniform blue-gray, scattered around a simulated town green in the middle of which they were building an octagonal gazebo. Encircling the observable area were tall, mature trees, but the landscape within looked freshly cultivated.
I slowly cruised along the gently curved streets, searchingfor number 35G. There was little danger of bumping into Abby. Her lawyer had told me she’d be away for a few weeks, that she’d left some papers for me to sign related to some proceeding he wanted me to attend, all of which as usual I ignored.
After searching most of the neighborhood I found 35G. A woman, probably in her late seventies, wearing oversized canvas gloves and a broad-brimmed hat was out on the lawn fussing with a huge, unruly bottlebrush buckeye.
“Excuse me,” I called to her through the open car window, “are you staying here?”
“Not me. I just thought this bush needed some trimming,” she said, without looking in my direction. “Of course I’m staying here,” she added, punctuating the statement with a deft snip of her pruning shears.
“Do you know Abby Acquillo?” I asked.
She stopped snipping and looked over at me.
“You mean Abigail Vaneer?”
“Vaneer?”
“She doesn’t like you to call her Abby. That’s what
Things got a lot hillier when I hit the northwest corner of the Commonwealth. The Berkshires gave way to the foothills of the Green Mountains, which you ascend on narrow switchback roads that follow trout streams and old Indian trails through verdant tunnels made of hemlock and southern pine. Eventually I crested the ridge of a mountain and repeated the experience on a downward plane. Not long after that I was in Vermont.
Somewhere south of Bennington I hit Route 7 and headed north. I was relieved to be driving in a somewhat straight line, going up and over an endless succession of hills, past open fields with huge green mounds in the distance and through strange little villages of eighteenth-century inns, trailer homes and factory outlets.
Nearly hypnotized by the experience, I almost missed the sign for Route 125 East. I spun the front tires of my car over the pitted macadam as I made a hard turn and plunged into another narrow, deep wooded passage. Along the way I stopped for gas at a two-pump station outside Bread Loaf. I talked the sallow young woman behind the greasy glass-toppedcounter into filling my big paper cup with ice, over which I poured a couple fingers of bourbon and a fresh Coca-Cola.
From there it was an easy run over to Route 100 and then up to Warren where I owned a time-share that I’d never seen. Abby was the one who liked to ski, a pursuit that for me was never more than a theoretical construct. I understood the principle, something about sliding down snow-covered hills in frigid temperatures and periodically breaking your leg. It worked better for me as a vacation from my wife, who for over ten years would spend the bulk of her winter weekends and an occasional full week on the slopes.
I remembered the address from writing countless monthly checks to a place called Fox Run Borders, LLC, which always struck me as inherently contradictory. Even so, it took a lot of asking around town before I found someone to give me directions.
“Oh shoo-wa, that’s over thea towa’d the skiin’,” a red-nosed old guy in a black T-shirt and Red Sox cap told me. “Near Suga’bush. The place ya’re talkin’ about is up inna woods. Exclusive. Fulla New Yawkas.”
It was easier to find than he led me to believe, probably because of a sign on the road featuring a fox who was neither running, nor looking entirely secure within his borders. More ambivalent, which was how I was feeling.
The development looked like any suburban enclave you’d find down on the flatlands. Little two-story colonial houses with narrow clapboard siding stained a uniform blue-gray, scattered around a simulated town green in the middle of which they were building an octagonal gazebo. Encircling the observable area were tall, mature trees, but the landscape within looked freshly cultivated.
I slowly cruised along the gently curved streets, searchingfor number 35G. There was little danger of bumping into Abby. Her lawyer had told me she’d be away for a few weeks, that she’d left some papers for me to sign related to some proceeding he wanted me to attend, all of which as usual I ignored.
After searching most of the neighborhood I found 35G. A woman, probably in her late seventies, wearing oversized canvas gloves and a broad-brimmed hat was out on the lawn fussing with a huge, unruly bottlebrush buckeye.
“Excuse me,” I called to her through the open car window, “are you staying here?”
“Not me. I just thought this bush needed some trimming,” she said, without looking in my direction. “Of course I’m staying here,” she added, punctuating the statement with a deft snip of her pruning shears.
“Do you know Abby Acquillo?” I asked.
She stopped snipping and looked over at me.
“You mean Abigail Vaneer?”
“Vaneer?”
“She doesn’t like you to call her Abby. That’s what
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