and one’s no good without the other. Solitude is nothing if you’re frightened or lonesome or bored to tears or without a purpose. And confidence is easy for couples, relatively speaking; much more complicated and difficult for singles.
So the point of the fantasy is that I am both, the perfect Dash caught in a snapshot moment, and everything is possible. Instead of all the mundane knowns of my real life, I’m a walking (literally) manifestation of opportunity. Nothing ties me down. Freedom. Total freedom, and I’m not scared of it—I thrive on it. I stride out, chin up, heels clicking, toward my unknown but significant destination.
T he Benders’ house is on Tolliver Pike, the road to Dolley. Right on the road, one of those old farmhouses it must’ve seemed like a good idea, eighty or ninety years ago, to build twenty-five feet from the sleepy lane the milk truck trundled down every day to pick up your product. Not that Tolliver Pike is much more than a sleepy little lane now, but at least it’s got two lanes instead of one, which means they widened it since the olden days, which means the Benders’ front porch is fifteen feet from the road and completely out of proportion, house to yard. The place isn’t even a dairy farm anymore. Various Bender forebears sold pieces off over the years, and now there’s just the old gray frame house set so close to the road you could almost reach out and skim your hand along the daylilies as you drive by.
I’ve always admired it, though, even before I knew our handyman lived there. It’s got the classic box shape with a steep gable front, very popular around these parts. Two aged, peeling sycamores shade the long porch on either side, and I just think that’s a miracle, that nothing has happened to at least one of those old beauties in all this time. There’s a spectacular flower garden in the backyard—too bad it’s not in the front, but the sycamores make too much shade. Plus there’s no room.
I park in the driveway, pick my way around winter-naked shrubbery to the front. I don’t recognize the man who answers the door. Then I do. Mr. Bender—without his hat! Why, he’s bald, there’s only a smoky fringe of hair in back from ear to ear. He looks younger—no, older. I can’t decide. I’m discombobulated.
“Hi, hello, I hope I’m not disturbing you—I wanted to ask after your wife, and give you this.” I hold out my foil-topped glass casserole. “You probably don’t need it, but I thought you could freeze it, and don’t worry about the container, I can get that any old time—”
“Who is it, Shevlin?” a woman’s voice calls from inside.
His black beetle brows come down. He looks as welcoming as an old, irritable rottweiler. He stands still, moves nothing but his head to call back: “Miz Bateman.”
“Who?”
He turns back, vindicated. “Wife’s not up to—”
“Oh, Bateman, from up the mountain? Well, let her in, don’t leave her standing out there on the stoop.”
I say, “That’s okay, really, I just wanted to—”
“Come on in,” Mr. Bender— Shevlin —says in a resigned but commanding tone, and opens the door wide.
“I won’t stay two minutes ,” I promise, and step inside.
A grandfather clock in the hall takes that moment to chime the hour. I have a hasty impression of country decor and comfortable clutter before an upright, elderly woman in jeans bustles toward me from the low-ceilinged living room, pulling a white cardigan tighter around her and smiling with her whole face. “Mrs. Bateman,” she says, almost as if she’s been expecting me. We shake hands; her grip is calloused and firm. “How nice to meet you, I’ve heard all about you.”
What has she heard? “Dash,” I say, “call me Dash. I’m sorry—I thought—Mr. Bender said…” But now I don’t want to say what he said; if he was fibbing to get out of doing chores for me, how embarrassing for everybody. I stutter some more. Mrs. Bender
So the point of the fantasy is that I am both, the perfect Dash caught in a snapshot moment, and everything is possible. Instead of all the mundane knowns of my real life, I’m a walking (literally) manifestation of opportunity. Nothing ties me down. Freedom. Total freedom, and I’m not scared of it—I thrive on it. I stride out, chin up, heels clicking, toward my unknown but significant destination.
T he Benders’ house is on Tolliver Pike, the road to Dolley. Right on the road, one of those old farmhouses it must’ve seemed like a good idea, eighty or ninety years ago, to build twenty-five feet from the sleepy lane the milk truck trundled down every day to pick up your product. Not that Tolliver Pike is much more than a sleepy little lane now, but at least it’s got two lanes instead of one, which means they widened it since the olden days, which means the Benders’ front porch is fifteen feet from the road and completely out of proportion, house to yard. The place isn’t even a dairy farm anymore. Various Bender forebears sold pieces off over the years, and now there’s just the old gray frame house set so close to the road you could almost reach out and skim your hand along the daylilies as you drive by.
I’ve always admired it, though, even before I knew our handyman lived there. It’s got the classic box shape with a steep gable front, very popular around these parts. Two aged, peeling sycamores shade the long porch on either side, and I just think that’s a miracle, that nothing has happened to at least one of those old beauties in all this time. There’s a spectacular flower garden in the backyard—too bad it’s not in the front, but the sycamores make too much shade. Plus there’s no room.
I park in the driveway, pick my way around winter-naked shrubbery to the front. I don’t recognize the man who answers the door. Then I do. Mr. Bender—without his hat! Why, he’s bald, there’s only a smoky fringe of hair in back from ear to ear. He looks younger—no, older. I can’t decide. I’m discombobulated.
“Hi, hello, I hope I’m not disturbing you—I wanted to ask after your wife, and give you this.” I hold out my foil-topped glass casserole. “You probably don’t need it, but I thought you could freeze it, and don’t worry about the container, I can get that any old time—”
“Who is it, Shevlin?” a woman’s voice calls from inside.
His black beetle brows come down. He looks as welcoming as an old, irritable rottweiler. He stands still, moves nothing but his head to call back: “Miz Bateman.”
“Who?”
He turns back, vindicated. “Wife’s not up to—”
“Oh, Bateman, from up the mountain? Well, let her in, don’t leave her standing out there on the stoop.”
I say, “That’s okay, really, I just wanted to—”
“Come on in,” Mr. Bender— Shevlin —says in a resigned but commanding tone, and opens the door wide.
“I won’t stay two minutes ,” I promise, and step inside.
A grandfather clock in the hall takes that moment to chime the hour. I have a hasty impression of country decor and comfortable clutter before an upright, elderly woman in jeans bustles toward me from the low-ceilinged living room, pulling a white cardigan tighter around her and smiling with her whole face. “Mrs. Bateman,” she says, almost as if she’s been expecting me. We shake hands; her grip is calloused and firm. “How nice to meet you, I’ve heard all about you.”
What has she heard? “Dash,” I say, “call me Dash. I’m sorry—I thought—Mr. Bender said…” But now I don’t want to say what he said; if he was fibbing to get out of doing chores for me, how embarrassing for everybody. I stutter some more. Mrs. Bender
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