Dear Grandma,

I’ve never written you before, so this is weird.

* * *

Dear Gertrude,

I know you don’t know me, but I know you. Aaaaand I sound like a stalker.

* * *

Dear Gertrude,

Hi, it’s me. Your granddaughter. The one you’ve never met. I know it’s been a long time. My whole life, in fact, but

* * *

Dear Gertrude,

My name is Red. I am your granddaughter. I’d like to meet you. I know you and my mom were estranged. She told me you didn’t want to see us when I was younger, but it would be nice if you would give me a chance. I’m a writer, like you. Okay, not like you per se. That would be something of a stretch. I haven’t won a Pulitzer, and I’m not a poet, but I worked for the Boston Journal until recently, when I was laid off. I was a courts reporter, then an art critic.

I don’t have any family except you. I need money. Or a friend. Or both. But I’ll get nothing, because I’m too proud to send this e-mail.

My rent is late. Like…really late. I’m eating ice cream by the gallon and over-using Mr. Happy, my huge, purple, LELO rabbit vibrator. That’s because my boyfriend left me…for a dude. Yeah, I know. It’s fucking weird. It sucks.

I wonder why the hell you and my mom were estranged. She didn’t like to talk about it. I can’t believe you didn’t come to her funeral. Or did you? I’m not even sure what you look like. I think your Wiki picture is about sixty years outdated. Maybe you could visit me in Boston and take a new one.

Wonder if I’ll ever really write you. I doubt it. I bet I get my pride from you, you old coot.

~Red

I slam my Macbook shut and race for the bathroom. The bathroom I’ve been using as seldom as possible, because I’m running out of toilet paper.

I leap over a pile dirty clothes beside my tan recliner, dash past a three-foot tall stack of paperbacks in the hallway, and narrowly avoid tripping on a pair of ice skates before I punch through the bathroom door.

Pink. This small room looks like the inside of a Bubble Yum bubble. I drop down on the pale pink toilet, let out a sigh, and blink at my reflection. Me: naked in front of an oyster-shell sink, surrounded by pink tile. I look thinner. More like I did in college. And it’s not just the leanness. A few weeks ago, shortly after I lost my job, I hacked myself some brand new bangs. I’m wearing them longish, almost in my eyes, the way I did my senior year at Northwestern. The rest of my bright red hair is long like college, too. Past my shoulders, hanging just over the swell of my breasts.

They look pert right now, and full. I’m an apple, with more weight on my tummy than my legs, and my breasts are a generous “C” cup. I’ve been irrationally proud of this since I hit puberty the summer after eighth grade.

But there’s no point admiring my new, thinner figure or my bust. These boobs haven’t done a damn thing for me lately. Suddenly I can’t even stand to look at my naked body. I tear four squares of toilet paper off the roll and wipe quickly. I flush and look into the basket beside the toilet: six more rolls. That’s not so bad. With any luck, I can make that last three weeks. Maybe more like two. If I run out, I’ll sneak back into the Journal and steal more.

I tuck my hair behind my ears, frown at my freckled, blue-eyed reflection, and pick my way back into the little living area.

Boston is expensive, so when I leased this place two years ago, a studio was all I could afford. And even then, rent was $2,200 per month. My landlord, a ball-cap-sporting, glasses-wearing hipster named Dursey, raised it to $2,250 this past fall. At the time, I barely thought about it. Carl had moved in a few months prior, so I was only paying half.

Now I look around the hardwood den and kitchen area and wonder how long until someone else’s dust is piling in the corners.

I sink into the nest of pillows and blankets on the couch, where I’ve been sleeping since I sold my canopy bed, and ask myself if it was worth it, being ‘house poor.’ I never minded not having a lot in savings, because I never figured I would need it. Before January 30, I spent most of my money on clothes, food, and utilities. Just the basics. I’m not a very materialistic person, which is good, because I guess I’m not very good with money, either.

I glance at the coffee table, where my laptop sits, adorned with stickers I put there in college. I keep telling myself I might have to sell it, too, but honestly, I’m not sure I can. I kind of think I’d check myself into a homeless shelter with it hidden inside a blanket if I had to. I know I’m not a great writer—I’m definitely not famous like my grandmother, Gertrude O’Malley—but I love writing.

Whatever, though.

Enough moping.

I spent the morning job-hunting, the afternoon reading the latest Richard Powers novel, and the early evening typing up a meal plan, just to be sure I make the food in my pantry last as long as possible. I’ve got one bottle of Sauvignon Blanc left, and I’m thinking about downing it. Goes well with everything, even tonight’s dinner: a little bowl of insta-mac and cheese.

I hop up, slip into the red silk robe hanging on the couch’s arm, and walk into the kitchen to microwave the mac and cheese, when my iPhone rings.

I turn a circle, skimming my gaze over the granite countertops and mahogany cabinets, then dash back into the den, where it looks like the women’s section of a large department store has vomited everywhere.

“Damnit…”

I can’t find anything in this—

There!

I pluck the phone from between a cereal bowl and a copy of The New Yorker on my coffee table and see that “Katie Underpants Danger” is calling. My BFF’s name is actually Katie Stranger, but everyone from the Journal calls her Katie Danger, which makes sense because she’s a police reporter. Unlike my amoral self, Katie believes in never going without your underpants, so that’s how she got her middle name.

I press the green button. “Cat-yyyyyy!”

“Red!” Katie has a prim, little old lady kind of voice. She sounds like your grandmother crying out your name from the first row of fold-out chairs at the seventh-grade spelling bee. This makes it super funny when she curses.

“Whatcha doing?” I ask, plodding back into the kitchen.

“I’m at the KSC.” The Kendall Square Cinema, a little mom and pop place in Cambridge. “Ronnie and Betsy and I. And you, if you can come.”

Shit.

Katie keeps inviting me out, and I keep having to tell her ‘no,’ because I can’t afford it. I bite my lower lip. I’m going to have to tell her something like the truth, or she’s going to think I’m dodging her.

I sigh. “I would love to come with you guys, but I’m running a little low on funds.” I twirl a lock of hair around my finger, figuring there’s no need to elaborate. I’ve been nine weeks without income. I’m footing the entire bill for an apartment I used to share. I’m also having to use a bunch of my unemployment money paying for an emergency room visit after spraining my ankle ice skating at the Frog Pond New Years’ day.

“Oh, okay. Well I see. I’m sorry.”

I shrug, adding water to my mac and cheese. “I didn’t mention it. And no problem. Is tomorrow Saturday? Yep, tomorrow’s Saturday. Come by on Sunday. We’ll go…I dunno. We’ll go walking or something. Something super cool. And tell Ronnie and B I’ll see them next week at Hugh’s.”

A few minutes later, I’m sliding the phone into the pocket of my robe and pouring cheese powder into my steaming noodles. I stop to pop the cork on my last bottle of wine before I even stir the powder in. It’s Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc: my favorite, which I used to buy maybe too regularly. I take a long swig from the bottle and pinch my lips together.

My robe vibrates. The phone. Katie again.

“Red, OMG, I forgot to tell you! True Crime channel, twenty minutes! Can you DVR for me? They’re doing a special on James Wolfe, and Rob told me they’re using some footage from the Times!”

“Sure.” I nod. “No prob.”

“Thanks, Red. And hey…we miss you.”

“Ditto. TTYL.”

I hang up before I can get all dumb and emotional. I see Katie at least twice a week, and the rest of the gang at our Wednesday night bingo game at Hugh’s. I have nothing to cry about.

Except that I don’t see them every day.

And this week, I realized I can’t even afford to go to the MFA to see a traveling collection of “W” paintings. A few months ago, I’d have gotten a private tour. Shit, I might have even gotten to meet the reclusive “W.” Okay—maybe not, but still.

I take a long chug from the bottle. Then another. I stir the powder into my noodles and swallow a few bites, followed by another gulp. It tastes so fucking good. God, I’ve missed drinking.

I miss getting drunk.

I take my bowl and bottle into the den and find the True Crime channel. I’m greeted by a close-up of an attractive guy with shaggy-looking dark brown hair; cold, dark brown eyes; and a mean jawline. Total serial killer material. Only I’m pretty sure this guy only killed his wife. Maybe her lover, too. I don’t remember. I was working here at the Journal when Katie worked this case as an intern with The New York Times. I didn’t know her until the next year, when she came on as the new cops reporter at the Journal.

I was hired first, and still, I’m the one who got canned.

“Who cares, Red?” I tip back the bottle to shut my bitter self up.

I sink back into the couch and listen to the sad story of one James Wolfe, a privileged upstate New Yorker who married a celebutant and longtime family friend. Her name was Cookie. Seriously—Cookie. I drink my way through the story of their debauched marriage: ménages, swinging, maybe a little bit of BDSM. Naturally, our murdering homeboy was the dom. I listen to college friends of both James and Cookie; officers who worked the crime scene; and the senior crime reporter for the Times. I think that guy was Katie’s superior.

I soak up details of the trial, reacquainting myself with familiar courtroom terms. When I hear the word “redirect,” I start to cry. It’s not logical. It’s silly. But suddenly I miss my old court beat. I pull my computer into my lap, and just to torture myself, I go to the MFA’s web site, where I scroll through “W.”’s breathtaking nature paintings. I cry a little more at ‘Self Portrait of an Owl.’ That one has really nice colors.

I slap a mental headline on my distress: ‘Canned reporter chokes to death on $20 wine’

A few minutes later, when I hear how James Wolfe walked free, I actually do choke. From there, I slip back into my crying jag. Why do some people have things easy while others don’t? Some people get murdered. Some people get fired. Some people starve to death. Kids get cancer. I hate life.

In this frame of mind, I open my computer.

Gertrude:

You have a granddaughter. Remember? I’ve never met you, and you’re getting really fucking old. This is me, inviting myself for drinks. I’ll bring the scotch. You send the treasure map to your swanky ass island.

~Sarah Ryder (known to people in the know as “Red,” on account of my fabulous red hair).

When I wake up with a terrible hangover, I’m not sure if I really sent the e-mail to the address posted on The O’Malley Foundation’s web site. But I know for sure I didn’t DVR the special on James Wolfe.

* * *

Checking my sent box and realizing I did, in fact, e-mail Gertrude brings a strange relief. I know I’ve cashed in my only chip. I can finally surrender myself to fate.

Sunday morning, I list my iPad, my flatscreen, my coffee table, and my antique chifferobe for sale on Craig’s List and I call my landlord, letting him know I still don’t have March’s rent money. He offers to let me make a half payment. I tell him I’ll move out in two weeks, and I’ll give him as much as I can when I hand in the key; the rest when I find a new job. I’m not sure where I’ll go, but it doesn’t really matter. I can’t stay here.

In the two hours before I meet up with Katie, I list the rest of my furniture, my rugs, my Mikasa dinnerware, two antique mirrors, and my collection of shoes and handbags on Craig’s List.

Minutes later, my phone vibrates with the first of what becomes many e-mail notifications. People want my shit.

While I stand in front of the mirror to get dressed, I realize it’s the first time in a while that I haven’t felt like I’m staring at a loser.

Maybe I’ll end up sleeping on friends’ couches, but at least I’ll know I did everything I could.

I dress in jeans, a thermal shirt, my puffy, navy blue jacket, and my favorite pair of pink and black Nike sneakers, and lock the front door with a growing sense of nostalgia. As I walk the snow-caked sidewalk, headed toward the shops at Beacon Hill, I check my phone. I’ve got $63.29 in my checking account and $344.02 in savings. I move all but $5.00 from savings into checking and slide my phone back into my pocket.

It’s a gray day, not unusual for March in Boston. The kind of day I never minded when I was working, because writing about art is dramatic and fun, and riding the rail to a museum or a gallery or a show or an auction was part of my daily commute.

Before I reach the cozy little business district surrounding Beacon Hill, I try to brace myself for Katie’s work talk. Katie loves being a reporter. She tweets about the stories she covers almost ’round the clock. She’d rather check out a crime scene than eat or sleep or fuck her boyfriend, Gage.

Thinking of Gage makes me think of Carl, and I do not need to think of Carl. Carl, who waited until the dim afterglow of some fantastically mediocre Christmas Eve sex to tell me he was leaving me for Sam. Blonde, blue-eyed, freckle-faced Sam from Denver. A ripped bartender with a forearm tattoo of a red-haired mermaid. Sam who wears a black apron and an emerald earring. Sam who has a cock.

I shove my hands into the pockets of my coat as I pass the narrow streets of Beacon Hill, a cute historical district just two blocks from my apartment. Down one of the streets is the Journal office. Down another, Hugh’s Bar, where we play drunk bingo. I’m headed for another Boston staple: the frozen Frog Pond at Boston Commons. I realize belatedly that I’ve forgotten my ice skates and wonder if I could sell them, too. I doubt it. I let my breath out in a steamy cloud. How pathetic is it that I just want to go back to my apartment and box up clothes for Goodwill? That I feel as if my time would be better spent begging for jobs at the shops here than with my best friend?

I follow the sidewalk past bookstores and coffee shops and sandwich shops and offices, moving quickly over the icy ground. A few more blocks and I’m in the snow-caked green space of the Commons. I pass couples holding hands, a woman smoking a pipe, a man in a trench coat, a mom with two young, coughing kids. And then there’s the pond: decked out with lights strung through the trees around it, dotted by skaters: people laughing, twirling, playing. I spot Katie’s short, curvy figure from fifty yards away and immediately feel warmed.

We share a quick hug behind the ice skate rental booth, then exchange five dollar bills for skates and sit on a covered bench to pull them on.

“How are you ya?” Katie asks as she tugs a boot off. Her eyebrows rise halfway up her forehead, near her blonde hairline.

“Still kicking.”

“We’re worried.” By ‘we,’ she means the Journal crew. That’s how enmeshed we all are. Were. Everything is ‘we.’ Damn, I miss that. I get my first skate over my thick wool sock and shake my head.

“Don’t worry. I’ll land on my feet.” And, because I know Katie and I know she’s a worrier, I dredge up my cheeriest voice and add: “I’ve applied for lots of good jobs in the last few days. A copy editor position at the New York Sentinel and a court reporting job at the Long Island Courier. Eight more jobs in the Boston metro area, including some nanny jobs. Those pay really well.”

Katie nods, wearing what she thinks is a poker-face, but what is actually a worried mom face.

“If all else fails,” I tell her, “I’ll wait tables at Hugh’s.”

She blows a stray piece of hair off her forehead. “If all else fails, we’ll murder Crissy—” the newbiest of the newbie reporters who survived the layoff.

“That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. She still texting her boyfriend all day?”

“Oh, you know it.”

Katie stands up on her skates and holds out a hand for me. We latch arms and hobble past a few half-frozen trees, to a little locker room where we pay fifty cents to stash our shoes. Then we push out onto the frozen pond. It’s cold tonight, so as I glide, the white cloud of my breath floats around my face. Katie is half a pace ahead of me, holding out her arms. She tips her head back, facing the sky, and I feel a pang of envy at how free she seems. Then I feel like an asshole for feeling envious.

A second later, she turns to face me and smirks. “Want to race?” She nods at the other side of the pond, and I glide out ahead of her.

“Ready, set, go!” I grin, looking at her over my shoulder, and she lunges toward me. She shoves me back and cries, “Go!”

“Bitch!”

Katie’s ahead of me, but she’s got short legs. I gain quickly. As soon as I find my stride, feeling almost happy for the first time in weeks, a little kid trips right in front of me and I almost slice his hand off with my skate. By the time we reach the other side of the pond, Katie has grabbed an older man’s arm in a desperate attempt not to wipe out, and I’ve bumped into a pregnant woman. What can I say? I was blinded by my bangs.

Katie beats me by a foot or two, and we shove each other a few times, both barely keeping our balance. We’re laughing and panting as we move toward the edge of the pond, looping a boisterous group of college guys.

When we reach a quieter patch of ice, I turn to her. “I forgot to record your thing.”

“Was I on it?”

I drop my head into my hand. “I’m a shitty friend. I fell asleep, so I don’t even know.”

“You dirty whore.”

“I know, I know. I suck big, hairy balls.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “I know you have a lot on your mind.”

“No it’s not.” We skate side-by-side, and somewhere nearby, there is music; and all around us, people slide by wearing clothes they got from their dressers and closets, talking to people they care about, smiling because they are happy; and suddenly I know—I just fucking know—that things are about to change for me. Big time. I’m not sure how, and I’m too afraid to want to know, but I can feel it. I can sense my path diverging from Katie’s, even as we skate here, side by side.

My throat feels thick and tight. I think I’m going to cry. Not because I’m scared or sad for myself, but because I really will miss her and the gang from work. We will never be friends the way we were.

I need a distraction. “Do you think he did it?”

“Wuh?”

“James Wolfe.”

“Aaaah.” She shakes her head, blonde pigtails bouncing. “I never did.” We bump elbows as we move around the perimeter of the pond. “Mainly because of the whole voice thing. You might not have watched it closely enough to see all the evidence, or not evidence, but there were some pretty serious holes in the case. Most notably this bit about a butler who supposedly heard a man’s voice that didn’t sound how James Wolfe’s voice actually sounds. But as far as whether he actually did it, or ordered it done…” She shakes her head. “I guess I’m just going on a gut feeling.”

That’s all anyone can go on. James Wolfe hasn’t been seen in six years. “Where do you think he went?”

Katie shrugs. “Could have been anywhere. I’d get the heck out of the country if I were him.”

I think once more about the clean-shaven, hard-jawed man with dark brown eyes, and then I push him from my mind. I want to enjoy this night with Katie. So I do. We talk about work, gliding and twirling through the crowd. The head copy editor, Jane, just got engaged to her longtime girlfriend, and last night, Katie got called out to a big heroin bust. We talk about a controversial editorial in The Boston Globe. We pull off our skates and put on our shoes and walk to a coffee shop, where Katie orders a cinnamon bagel and a hot cocoa and I ask for tea; it’s only $2.10.

“Why aren’t you getting coffee?” Katie bugs her eyes out.

I smile proudly. “Gave it up.”

I’m a liar. But I make it home without having to tell her I’m giving up the apartment, without bursting into tears or freezing to death. I don’t even have blisters from the skates.

The first thing I do is check the job boards and my professional, Sarah Ryder e-mail address. I’ve got four confirmations from the job apps I put through yesterday, but nothing good. No call backs; mostly just spam.

I check my Red account, the one I used to e-mail Gertrude. No reply. Emboldened by my desperate circumstances, I send another e-mail telling her I was drunk but really would like to meet. Then I read some of her poetry. It’s beautiful stuff, with lines about flowers like solemn children and the terror of a lone cloud.

I wonder what she’s like now. I wonder if she’d remind me of my mother. It’s that particular curiosity that, first thing Monday morning, drives me to phone Strike magazine in New York City. Gertrude founded it in the mid-1960s: “a journal of enlightenment and issues” aimed at “the contemporary woman.”

I get an operator and ask for the managing editor, a woman named Zoey Cruella. I’m put through to her assistant, Thomas, a polite guy who seems a few years younger than me. I tell Thomas my sad story, starting with my single-mother rearing and ending with Mom’s untimely death, at 38, of pancreatic cancer.

“I was thinking of my mom today and I figured, why not try to get Gertrude’s address? I thought you guys might have it. She’s on the magazine’s board, isn’t she?”

Thomas confirms that indeed she is, but he says he can’t just had it out.

“So there’s nothing you can do for me?”

“Just a moment.”

He returns and says, “I think my boss has found a solution. I’m going to quiz you.”

“Okay.” I chew my lip. “I’ll do my best.”

“What was your mother’s full name?”

“Georgia Anna Deckert.”

“And your full name?”

“Sarah Lynn Ryder.”

“Okay. You’re in business. Please don’t share this, though. It’s only a mailing address—not physical—but Ms. O’Malley values her privacy.”

An hour later, I’m walking to the mailbox with a good ole fashioned hand-written letter. My hungry stomach hurts with nervousness. Things are feeling more real now that I’ve got less than two weeks with a roof over my head. What if she never replies? What if she does, and she invites me to come see her? What if she could help me get a job?

I forfeit my pride and call Thomas back, asking if there are any openings at Strike.

“No,” he says. “I’m sorry.” But he doesn’t sound sorry. He sounds annoyed.

On a whim, I call my landlord, Dursey. “I’m sorry to bother you again, but I wanted to let you know— I wanted to ask if you know of any jobs and tell you I’d take almost anything. If you have any friends or anything…”

Silence stretches out between us before finally, Dursey clears his throat.

“For sure. I’ll let you know.”

But he won’t. I can tell.

The days begin to slide through my fingers. My eye starts twitching like it did after Mom died. I stop eating. I just can’t choke food down. I watch my phone and check my e-mail and apply for more jobs. I even go by Hugh’s and ask the owner, Benjamin, if he would hire me.

“In a heartbeat, honey. But I’ve got no openings right now.”

One night, in a state of panic, I look up escort services. I’m not super sexually experienced—no more than average, whatever that is—but I like orgasms, and I’m not ugly. I could maybe have sex with carefully vetted strangers if it meant I could afford a small apartment.

I check college apartment boards, hoping to find a situation where I’d be one of several roommates. Maybe I could get a low rent that way. I e-mail two girls, but get no response.

A week goes by, a week in which I collect an additional $264 from the sale of various belongings. A week in which I awake in the night, heart beating frantically, and check my inbox with sweaty fingers. A week in which I stand up the Journal crew for bingo.

On a Wednesday afternoon, I sell most of my clothes, adding a measly $43 to my sad sum. I go door to door again, hitting literally every business on Beacon Hill and the surrounding neighborhoods. I swallow the absolute last smidgen of my pride and frenziedly apply at a work-all-night janitorial service, at a Wendy’s, at a car wash down the street.

I wish I hadn’t had to sell my Kia to make rent last month. If I still had it, I could expand the door-to-door part of my job hunt.

On Tuesday, I take the bus to West End and Boston Commons; on Wednesday, Back Bay, and Cambridge. I spend both days walking as far as I can, grabbing job applications from every place with an opening and filling them out on the cold sidewalk, pressing my pen down on my wallet and trying to keep my trembling fingers still enough so my handwriting is readable. I get home at half past two a.m. Thursday, exhausted and trembling from hunger.

Katie pops up the next day and breezes right into the apartment, which is, accidentally, unlocked.

She looks around with horror on her face and puts her hands on her hips. “Red, what the hell?”

I’ve been found out, and I’m slightly mortified, but I shrug and play it off. “I’m moving.”

“Holy wow.” Her mouth lolls. “Just…holy.”

I twirl around the almost-empty living room with my arms out. “I’m trying to live simply.”

“Holy shit, you got evicted, didn’t you? Because Carl left you high and dry.”

“I didn’t get evicted. I’m moving.”

“In with Gage and I.”

“No way.” They live in an 800-square-foot flat and fight and fuck like a pair of rabid cats.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“Katie—”

“Then where are you going?” she demands.

“I’ve got plans.”

“You don’t, Red. Quit putting me off. You’ve been doing it for weeks now and I’m tired of turning a blind eye to this…to this crisis.”

I roll my eyes. “K, you’re totally over-reacting.”

She’s not.

My latest plan involves buying a bus ticket to Florida, where it’s always warm and I can sleep under a dock. I’ll use the free WiFi at coffee shops to apply for jobs. Maybe the Peace Corps.

So I’m surprised when I blurt out, “I’m going to see my grandmother.”

“Gertrude?”

I nod slowly. “Yeah.”

This will be the easiest way to disappear. So Katie won’t worry. I’ll find a job in Florida, find a fresh start.

Over the next few hours, I convince Katie this is true. We read Gertrude’s poems aloud, and Katie orders Chinese food, which I devour so quickly I puke it all back up once Katie leaves.

Late that night, I’m curled up on a blanket in my empty bedroom, wearing the pink iPhone ear buds I used to wear when I wrote at work. I’m lying on my back, my face striped by the streetlight streaming through my blinds. I’m listening to Lana Del Ray, surfing the internet for what will be one of the last times ever on my phone; I’ve just sold it on Craig’s List for $90.

My leg itches and I reach down to scratch it. One of my nails is jagged. I scrape my calf just a little, and it stings.

I start to sob. I tug at my hair.

“How did this happen? What the fuck is wrong with everything?”

I rip the ear buds from my ears and toss my phone down. I jump up and tug my sneakers on without socks. I stab my arms into my coat and run toward Beacon Hill, where the bar crowd’s out in full force and creepers stand in alleys with their heads lowered. The air is so cold it feels like a corporeal thing.

I continue toward Boston Commons, and when I reach the pond, I spend five bucks on skates, because why the fuck not? I skate furiously in circles, until the dim stars that wink through spindly tree branches are nothing but a blur, and the faces passing by and the strings of lights and crying of a child and icy wind that slaps my cheeks seem like slivers of some dream.

This is not my life. It cannot be my life.

I skate until my feet are numb, and by the time I make it home, my hands are so frostbitten they burn terribly.

I take a hot shower and bundle up in my blankets. I check my Facebook, my e-mail, and feel the morbid compulsion to check my bank account. I do this fanatically now, sometimes like every five minutes. I’m not sure if I’m trying to motivate or torture or…holy shit.

The page has loaded. I blink. And blink. And wipe my eyes and blink.

My heart is pounding hard. Blood roars inside my ears. This can’t be right. It just…can’t be. But there it is. In simple, san serif font, black on a white screen underneath my bank’s emblem:

$30,377.12

I can’t believe my eyes. I must be going crazy. I log out, in, and out again. Twice. Four times. Six.

My phone vibrates: an e-mail. [email protected]omalleyfoundation.com

She has written only one word: “Come.”

Attached is a photocopy of a hand-drawn map, sketched with an ‘X’ on one Rabbit Island, a blip about two miles off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. At the bottom is Gertrude’s e-signature.

I’m pretty sure my “FUCK YES! HELL YES! FUCK!” is heard all through my building.

I throw my snow-damp sneakers back on and dash all the way to Fred’s Coffee & Bagels, where I order a grande latte and four extra-fattening, buttery, cinnamon-crusted bagels.

I walk slowly home to my nearly empty apartment, thanking God and sleet and smog and dirty snow for what this night has brought me. I’ve made some stupid choices, but e-mailing grandma is not one of them.

As I climb behind the wheel of my new-to-me ’04 Camry the next afternoon, I’m beaming from ear to ear. I’m going to meet my mom’s mother, and after that—or maybe before if I’m extra lucky—I’m going to find a way to end this two month dry spell.

* * *

I leave the island four times annually—one trip inland for each season—and that’s mostly for Trudie. Was for Trudie. She needed things on occasion, and with her bum hip, it was easier for me to get them.

After she passed, I debated ever leaving the island again. No reason to. I’ve got food and supplies. I can get Bob, my cousin and my manager, to arrange a courier to get the paintings. Maybe pay him to haul his ass down here and do it himself if he doesn’t trust a third party. Not my problem. Keeping me anonymous is Bob’s problem. Has been since we started.

The only thing that made me second-guess confinement to the island was pussy.

When I first came here four years ago, I didn’t leave for months. I started dreaming of pussy. Smelling pussy. Even tasting it. So I found Clarice, a lonely young widow in one of the row houses by the water. She likes it like I do, and she never wants to see my face.

She’s a good enough fuck. But I have to go to her. I would never bring her here. I would never bring anyone here.

I could pay for pussy. Liplocked pussy. Motor boat some discreet escort to the island. But escorts are boring.

Even Clarice—predictable, submissive Clarice—could conceivably say “no.” She could fight me if she wanted. And I need that. Need to think that maybe one day, she’ll decide to twist around and grab my hair and look into my eyes.

Without that possibility, without the chance that it could all implode, it’s not fucking worth it.

So, no escorts in motor boats.

After I’ve had some time to digest Trudie’s death and my subsequent inheritance of Rabbit Island, I decide no more Clarice, either.

I’ll find another way to deal with my dick.

Peace follows my decision. Peace: the closest thing I’d found to happiness. I think Trudie would have been glad for me.

I celebrate my vow of seclusion by wandering the forest. Pines and oaks, cypress, swampland. The island is an eighth of a mile long, and I love every fucking inch of it. I leave my cabin for two nights and pitch a tent on the boulder on the northwest side of the island. Sit beside it with my feet in the sand and listen to the whip-poor-will, to the lapping of the waves. Watch cypress branches drifting in the salty breeze. And when I can’t keep my hands still any longer, I let myself paint. A gull in the water. A squirrel on an oak. Simple shit.

The next day, I call Bob. Set up the courier.

And then three days ago, when I’m up at Trudie’s cottage, archiving her unpublished poems, the phone rings.

Trudie wasn’t a lover of technology, and she especially hated talking on the phone. In her honor, I let her archaic answering machine pick up. I wonder who the fuck has her number. The old woman was more reclusive than even me.

A second later, a male voice fills her little office.

“This is a message for James Wolfe. I’m Michael Halcomb, partner at Halcomb & Mallory and Gertrude O’Malley’s new estate attorney. I need to talk to you about her attempted deeding of Rabbit Island to you.”

I sit there a moment, absorbing the echo of my name; resisting the urge to grab the phone. Then I pluck it off her desk. “What do you mean attempted?”

I can tell the lawyer is surprised to hear my voice. I’ve got a deep voice. Distinctive. Shit… It’s fucking infamous.

I’m fucking infamous.

Bet the bastard was hoping he wouldn’t reach me.

“Mr. Wolfe?” His voice sounds tinny.

“You mentioned a problem?”

He clears his throat. “Er…yes sir. I’m glad I reached you. There’s an issue with the deeding of the island. Nothing insurmountable—”

“Spit it out.”

“I’m afraid the attorney in charge of Ms. O’Malley’s final arrangements was a junior colleague. He was only on the—”

“Spit. It. Out.”

“The island can’t be deeded to you, despite your being temporarily in charge of her trust. In the event that no family member is helping govern the trust, conservation land like the island can’t pass hands. For ownership of the island to change hands posthumously, it’s got to be done via Gertrude’s family. There’s only one living descendant, according to my research. A granddaughter—”

“Sarah Ryder.” A redhead. Freckled and pale, from the look of her in the photo on Trudie’s desk. Despite some kind of family feud, Trudie kept track of the girl. Subscribed to the Boston Journal online. Even had me program Google to send Trudie an e-mail alert when it picked up the name “Sarah L. Ryder.”

In the last few weeks of Trudie’s life, I corresponded two times with her oncologist via e-mail. Which is how I found out that little, red-haired Sarah lost her job. About a week before Trudie passed, Sarah e-mailed, wanting to meet up. Trudie asked me not to reply.

“I waited too late,” she told me.

Why hadn’t Sarah reached out to her until now? I did some checking around, had Bob call up a mutual friend from our Bridgewater days, and found out little miss Sarah was looking for a job. Looking unsuccessfully. Applications out all over Boston.

So…a moneygrubber.

“You’re right,” Halcomb says. “Her name is Sarah. She needs to take a position with the trust. She can then decide if the island should be sold to an individual. You. You’ll need to convince Sarah to get involved, and convince her to sell the island to you.”

“I hope your office intends to handle this. It’s your fuck-up. And I don’t leave the island. Ever.” That’s a stretch, but I’m damn sure not going to this bastard’s office.

“I can send someone out to help you—”

“Not someone. You.”

“Ah, well, I—”

“If you and I have to meet for any reason, you come to me. I don’t want to deal with an intern or some fucking first-year lackey.”

I enjoy his silence. Nervous silence.

He clears his throat again. The fucking pussy.

“Er…yes. Of course. Just tell me when and…well,” he chuckles, “I don’t need to ask where. Gertrude paid my firm well to be…considerate of her preferences. Her solitude. Yours as well, by extension, sir. But there won’t be any paperwork to sign, no business between you and me, until you contact Sarah.”

Fuck.