20. CHARLIE & CHARLEY
I learned on a foggy morning, one of those mornings when a thick fog turned everything gray, that non-hue arrived at by combining white and black, those antithetical impossible colors: so what I saw through the French doors where the lake and the sky should have been was a union of equal opposite impossibilities. If there was a red boat out there I couldn’t see it.
The afternoon before from the mysterious 334 area code I had received the following text message:
i no where u live
Followed seconds later by:
so do they
I heard the sound of a car engine followed by the crunch of tires rolling on gravel. Two car doors slammed. I heard two pairs of crepe-soled shoes making their way down the boards to my side of the deck. A female voice called:
“Yoo-hoo! Dr. Jones? I
