I am staying at a motel in another city and go for a morning walk. As I pass a small park, I see a man sitting alone in a pickup truck and wonder idly why he’s there. Returning later, I see a woman climb out of his truck, get in a car and drive away.
I wonder what their story is. Perhaps the woman is his wife, but it seems more interesting if she’s someone else’s wife. More possibilities, complications. Not a new story, of course, but one we have all heard before. Maybe even lived.
In Elizabeth Strout’s wonderful novel called “Olive Kitteridge,” the main character—a middle-aged, married, ornery school teacher—is swept off her feet by a colleague. Olive and Jim start having lunch together in his office and although they had never kissed, nor even touched, he says one day, “If I asked you to leave with me, would you do it?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Perhaps it’s a good thing I haven’t asked you,” he says.
“Yes,” she says.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader who was electrified by this brief exchange—and furious when the author solved the crisis by having Jim drive off the road, hit a tree, and die. Now I think about the man in the pickup truck—and the woman.
It’s an old, old story unless you’re a participant. Then it seems brand new.
