The Longest Ride

  "You didn't come back to the shop for a long time," I said to Ruth.

  Outside the car, the snow has blanketed the windshield and continues to fall. According to the Weather Channel, it should have stopped by now, but despite the wonders of modern technology and forecasting, weather predictions are still fallible. It is another reason I find the channel interesting.

  "My mother bought the hat. We had no money for anything more."

  "But you thought I was handsome."

  "No. Your ears were too big. I like delicate ears."

  She's right about my ears. My ears are big, and they stick out in the same way my father's did, but unlike my father, I was ashamed of them. When I was young, maybe eight or nine, I took some extra cloth from the shop and cut it into a long strip, and I spent the rest of the summer sleeping with the strip wrapped around my head, hoping they would grow closer to my scalp. While my mother ignored it when she'd check on me at night, I sometimes heard my father whispering to her in an almost affronted tone. He has my ears, he'd say to her. What is so bad about my ears?

  I told Ruth this story shortly after we were married and she laughed. Since then, she would sometimes tease me about my ears like she is doing now, but in all our years together, she never once teased me in a way that felt mean.

  "I thought you liked my ears. You told me that whenever you kissed them."

  "I liked your face. You had a kind face. Your ears just happened to come with it. I did not want to hurt your feelings."

  "A kind face?"

  "Yes. There was a softness in your eyes, like you saw only the good in people. I noticed it even though you barely looked at me."

  "I was trying to work up the courage to ask if I could walk you home."

  "No," she says, shaking her head. Though her image is blurred, her voice is youthful, the sixteen-year-old I'd met so long ago. "I saw you many times at the synagogue after that, and you never once asked me. I even waited for you sometimes, but you went past me without a word."

  "You didn't speak English."

  "By then, I had begun to understand some of the language, and I could talk a little. If you had asked, I would have said, 'Okay, Ira. I will walk with you.'"

  She says these last words with an accent. Viennese German, soft and musical. Lilting. In later years her accent faded, but it never quite disappeared.

  "Your parents wouldn't have allowed it."

  "My mother would have. She liked you. Your mother told her that you would own the business one day."

  "I knew it! I always suspected you married me for my money."

  "What money? You had no money. If I wanted to marry a rich man, I would have married David Epstein. His father owned the textile mill and they lived in a mansion."

  This, too, was one of the running jokes in our marriage. While my mother had been speaking the truth, even she knew it was not the sort of business that would make anyone wealthy. It started, and remained, a small business until the day I finally sold the shop and retired.

  "I remember seeing the two of you at the soda parlor across the street. David met you there almost every day during the summer."

  "I liked chocolate sodas. I had never had them before."

  "I was jealous."

  "You were right to be," she says. "He was rich and handsome and his ears were perfect."

  I smile, wishing I could see her better. But the darkness makes that impossible. "For a while I thought the two of you were going to get married."

  "He asked me more than once, and I would tell him that I was too young, that he would have to wait until after I finished college. But I was lying to him. The truth was that I already had my eye on you. That is why I always insisted on going to the soda parlor near your father's shop."

  I knew this, of course. But I like hearing her say it.

  "I would stand by the window and watch you as you sat with him."

  "I saw you sometimes." She smiles. "I even waved once, and still, you never asked to walk with me."

  "David was my friend."

  This is true, and it remained true for most of our lives. We were social with both David and his wife, Rachel, and Ruth tutored one of their children.

  "It had nothing to do with friendship. You were afraid of me. You have always been shy."

  "You must be mistaking me for someone else. I was debonair, a ladies' man, a young Frank Sinatra. I sometimes had to hide from the many women who were chasing me."

  "You stared at your feet when you walked and turned red when I waved. And then, in August, you moved away. To attend university."

  I went to school at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and I didn't return home until December. I saw Ruth twice at the synagogue that month, both times from a distance, before I went back to school. In May, I came home for the summer to work at the shop, and by then World War II was raging in Europe. Hitler had conquered Poland and Norway, vanquished Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, and was making mincemeat of the French. In every newspaper, in every conversation, the talk was only of war. No one knew whether America would enter the conflict, and the mood was grim. Weeks later, the French would be out of the war for good.

  "You were still seeing David when I returned."

  "But I had also become friends with your mother in the year you were gone. While my father was working, my mother and I would go to the shop. We would speak of Vienna and our old lives. My mother and I were homesick, of course, but I was angry, too. I did not like North Carolina. I did not like this country. I felt that I did not belong here. Despite the war, part of me wanted to go home. I wanted to help my family. We were very worried for them."

  I see her turn toward the window, and in the silence, I know that Ruth is thinking about her grandparents, her aunts and uncles, her cousins. On the night before Ruth and her parents left for Switzerland, dozens of her extended family members had gathered for a farewell dinner. There were anxious good-byes and promises to stay in touch, and although some were excited for them, nearly everyone thought Ruth's father was not only overreacting, but foolish to have given up everything for an uncertain future. However, a few of them had slipped Ruth's father some gold coins, and in the six weeks it took to journey to North Carolina, it was those coins that provided shelter and kept food in their stomachs. Aside from Ruth and her parents, her entire family had stayed in Vienna. By the summer of 1940, they were wearing the Star of David on their arms and largely prohibited from working. By then, it was too late for them to escape.

  My mother told me about these visits with Ruth and their worries. My mother, like Ruth, still had family back in Vienna, but like so many, we had no idea what was coming or just how terrible it would eventually be. Ruth didn't know, either, but her father had known. He had known while there was still time to flee. He was, I later came to believe, the most intelligent man I ever met.

  "Your father was building furniture then?"

  "Yes," Ruth said. "None of the universities would hire him, so he did what he had to do to feed us. But it was hard for him. He was not meant to build furniture. When he first started, he would come home exhausted, with sawdust in his hair and bandages on his hands, and he would fall asleep in the chair almost as soon as he walked in the door. But he never complained. He knew we were the lucky ones. After he woke, he would shower and then put on his suit for dinner, his own way of reminding himself of the man he once had been. And we would have lively conversations at dinner. He would ask what I had learned at school that day, and listen closely as I answered. Then he would lead me to think of things in new ways. 'Why do you suppose that is?' he would ask, or, 'Have you ever considered this?' I knew what he was doing, of course. Once a teacher, always a teacher, and he was good at it, which is why he was able to become a professor once again after the war. He taught me how to think for myself and to trust my own instincts, as he did for all his students."

  I study her, reflecting on how significant it was that Ruth, too, had become a teacher, and my mind flashes once
more to Daniel McCallum. "And your father helped you learn all about art in the process."

  "Yes," she says, a mischievous lilt in her voice. "He helped me do that, too."

  2

  Four Months Earlier

  Sophia

  "Y

  ou've got to come," Marcia pleaded. "I want you to come. There's like thirteen or fourteen of us going. And it's not that far. McLeansville is less than an hour away, and you know we'll have a blast in the car."

  Sophia made a skeptical face from her bed, where she was halfheartedly reviewing some Renaissance history notes. "I don't know... the rodeo?"

  "Don't say it like that," Marcia said, adjusting a black cowboy hat in the mirror, tilting it this way and that. Sophia's roommate since sophomore year, Marcia Peak was easily her best friend on campus. "A, it's not the rodeo - it's only bull riding. And B, it's not even about that. It's about getting off campus for a quick road trip, and hanging out with me and the girls. There's a party afterwards, where they set up bars in this big, old-fashioned barn near the arena... there's going to be a band, and dancing, and I swear to God you'll never find so many cute guys in one place again."

  Sophia looked up over the top of her notebook. "Finding a cute guy is the last thing I want right now."

  Marcia rolled her eyes. "The point is, you need to get out of the house. It's already October. We're two months into school and you need to stop moping."

  "I'm not moping," Sophia said. "I'm just... tired of it."

  "You mean you're tired of seeing Brian, right?" She spun around to face Sophia. "Okay, I get that. But it's a small campus. And Chi Omega and Sigma Chi are paired this year. No matter what, it's going to be inevitable."

  "You know what I mean. He's been following me. On Thursday, he was in the atrium of Scales Center after my class. That never happened while we were together."

  "Did you talk to him? Or did he try to talk to you?"

  "No." Sophia shook her head. "I headed straight for the door and pretended I didn't notice him."

  "So no harm, no foul."

  "It's still creepy --"

  "So what?" Marcia gave an impatient shrug. "Don't let it get to you. It's not like he's psycho or anything. He'll figure it out eventually."

  Sophia glanced away, thinking, I hope so, but when she didn't answer, Marcia crossed the room and took a seat on the bed beside her. She patted Sophia's leg. "Let's think about this logically, okay? You said he stopped calling and texting you, right?"

  Sophia nodded, albeit with a feeling of reluctance.

  "So okay, then," she concluded. "It's time to move on with your life."

  "That's what I've been trying to do. But everywhere I go, he's there. I just don't understand why he won't leave me alone."

  Marcia pulled her knees up, resting her chin on them. "Simple - Brian thinks that if he can talk to you, if he says the right things and pours on the charm, he'll convince you to change your mind. He honestly believes that." Marcia fixed her with an earnest expression. "Sophia, you have to realize that all guys think like this. Guys think they can talk their way out of anything, and they always want what they can't have. It's in their DNA. You dumped him, so now he wants you back. It's Guy 101." She winked at her friend. "He'll eventually accept that it's over. As long as you don't give in, of course."

  "I'm not giving in," Sophia said.

  "Good for you," Marcia said. "You were always too good for him."

  "I thought you liked Brian."

  "I do like him. He's funny and good-looking and rich - what's not to like? We've been friends since freshman year, and I still talk to him. But I also get that he's been a crappy boyfriend who cheated on my roommate. Not just once or twice, either, but three times."

  Sophia felt her shoulders sag. "Thanks for reminding me."

  "Listen, it's my job as your friend to help you move past this. So what do I do? I come up with this amazing solution to all your problems, a night out with the girls away from campus, and you're thinking of staying here?"

  When Sophia still said nothing, Marcia leaned closer. "Please? Come with us. I need my wingman."

  Sophia sighed, knowing how persistent Marcia could be. "Okay," she relented, "I'll go." And though she didn't know it then, whenever her thoughts drifted back toward the past, she would always remember that this was how it all began.

  As midnight gradually approached, Sophia had to concede that her friend had been right. She'd needed a night out... she realized that for the first time in weeks, she was actually having fun. After all, it wasn't every night that she got to enjoy the aromas of dirt, sweat, and manure, while watching crazy men ride even crazier animals. Marcia, she learned, thought bull riders oozed sex appeal, and more than once, her roommate had nudged her to point out a particularly handsome specimen, including the guy who'd won it all. "Now that is definitely eye candy," she'd said, and Sophia had laughed in agreement despite herself.

  The after-party was a pleasant surprise. The decaying barn, featuring dirt floors, wood plank walls, exposed beams, and gaping holes in the roof, was jammed. People stood three deep at the makeshift bars and clustered around a haphazard collection of tables and stools scattered throughout the cavernous interior. Even though she didn't generally listen to country-western music, the band was lively and the improvised wooden dance floor was thronged. Every now and then a line dance would start, which everyone except her seemed to know how to do. It was like some secret code; a song would end and another would begin, dancers streaming off the floor while others replaced them, choosing their places in line, leaving her with the impression that the whole thing had been choreographed in advance. Marcia and the other sorority girls would also join in, executing all the dance moves perfectly and leaving Sophia to wonder where they'd all learned how to do it. In more than two years of living together, neither Marcia nor any of the others had ever once mentioned they knew how to line dance.

  Though she wasn't about to embarrass herself on the dance floor, Sophia was glad she'd come. Unlike most of the college bars near campus - or any bar she'd been to, for that matter - here the people were genuinely nice. Ridiculously nice. She'd never heard so many strangers call out, "Excuse me," or, "Sorry 'bout that," accompanied by friendly grins as they moved out of her path. And Marcia had been right about another thing: Cute guys were everywhere, and Marcia - along with most of the other girls from the house - was taking full advantage of the situation. Since they'd arrived, none of them had had to buy a single drink.

  It all felt like the kind of Saturday night she imagined occurring in Colorado or Wyoming or Montana, not that she'd ever been to any of those places. Who knew that there were so many cowboys in North Carolina? Surveying the crowd, she realized they probably weren't real cowboys - most were there because they liked to watch the bull riding and drink beer on Saturday nights - but she'd never seen so many cowboy hats, boots, and belt buckles in one place before. And the women? They wore boots and hats, too, but between her sorority sisters and the rest of the women here, she noticed more short-shorts and bare midriffs than she'd ever seen in the campus quad on the first warm day of spring. It might as well have been a Daisy Duke convention. Marcia and the girls had gone shopping earlier that day, leaving Sophia feeling almost dowdy in her jeans and sleeveless blouse.

  She sipped her drink, content to watch and listen and take it all in. Marcia had wandered off with Ashley a few minutes earlier, no doubt to talk to some guys she'd met. Most of the other girls were forming similar clusters, but Sophia didn't feel the need to join them. She'd always been a bit of a loner, and unlike a lot of people in the house, she didn't live and die by the rules of the sorority. Though she'd made some good friends, she was ready to move on. As scary as the prospect of real life seemed, she was excited at the thought of having her own place. She vaguely imagined a loft in some city, with bistros and coffeehouses and bars nearby, but who knew how realistic that was. The truth was that even living in a dumpy apartment off the highway in Omaha, Nebraska, wo
uld be preferable to her current situation. She was tired of living in the sorority house, and not just because Chi Omega and Sigma Chi were paired again. It was her third year in the house, and by now the drama of sorority life was wearing thin. No, scratch that. In a house with thirty-four girls, the drama was endless, and though she'd done her best to avoid it, she knew this year's version was already under way. The new crop of sophomore girls fretted endlessly about what everyone else thought of them and how best to fit in as they vied for a higher place in the pecking order.

  Even when she'd joined, Sophia hadn't really cared about any of that stuff. She'd become a member of the sorority partly because she hadn't gotten along with her freshman roommate and partly because all the other freshmen were rushing. She was curious to find out what it was all about, especially since the social life at Wake was defined largely by the Greek system. The next thing she knew, she was a Chi Omega and putting a deposit down on the room in the house.

  She'd tried to get into the whole thing. Really. During her junior year, she'd briefly considered becoming an officer. Marcia had burst out laughing as soon as Sophia had mentioned it, and then Sophia had begun to laugh as well, and that had been the end of it. A good thing, too, because Sophia knew she would have made a lousy officer. Even though she'd attended every party, formal, and mandatory meeting, she couldn't buy into the whole "sisterhood will change your life" ethos, nor did she believe that "being a Chi Omega will bestow lifelong benefits."