The Rendezvous

Prince Edward Island. What is there? Red clay dirt. Potatoes. Potatoes buried from one end of the province to the other in bright red clay. And, of course, there is Anne of Green Gables.

Not literally. There is no real Anne. There is no Green Gables. Well, there is Michael's wife, Anne, presently passed out in the master bedroom of their small brick townhouse in Washington, DC. And there is on Prince Edward Island a Victorian house that gets a fresh coat of dark green on its trim each May—tourists come from all over the world to see the little farm that inspired L. M. Montgomery's story of the irrepressible orphan Anne Shirley.

Michael's wife, Anne, and their young daughter, Marilla, are asleep upstairs. He could easily put on his raincoat and slip out. If Anne did wake up and notice he was gone, he could say later that they'd needed milk for cereal in the morning, which is actually true. The woman who is not his wife had told Michael that any time before midnight would be fine. But she would not be available tomorrow night, or, for that matter, any other time after tonight.

________

Michael thinks about how his wife, Anne, is known at her work for making the right call when it matters most. She gladly accepts—preemptively asks for—the totally impossible assignment. Anne always gets the job done when nobody thinks she, or anybody, will be able to do it. Anne, who is crushing this life, professionally. Anne, who provides for their family. She was practically recruited right out of college, she'd told him. "They're so lucky to have you," Michael has always told her.

Michael is about an inch shorter than Anne, even more when she wears her heels, his rounded stomach poking through the same R.E.M. T-shirt he's worn since the nineties. His most recent achievements might include the afghan throws and doilies he crochets for their townhouse. They're all over the place, just like his notes. He can't predict when he'll come up with something new for his novel, a sort of Cold War thriller set in Japan, North Korea, and Prince Edward Island. When something comes to him, he writes it down as quickly as possible, then inevitably stuffs the paper into some book or drawer or other while cleaning up before Anne gets home from work.

________

An hour ago, Anne skidded around on one heel that got stuck in the carpet. Michael's wife had come home, finally, but she was too drunk even to move across the living room from the front door.

"I screwed up," she'd said.

"What happened?" he'd asked, trying to help her off with the long coat.

"I made an awful fucking mistake."

Anne swayed in the lamplight and Michael had put his arms around her in a bear hug to help steady her body. "I'm sorry, honey," he told her.

"I just screwed up," she said. "Leave it at that then," and he half carried her up the stairs to bed.

He'd worried that she would wake their daughter, Marilla. It had been a struggle earlier—there were faces watching from behind her clothes in the closet, ghouls with long rubber arms under the bed, threatening shadows that moved on the walls.

And now here he is alone at the front door, Anne and Mar both asleep upstairs, and Michael is thinking, "Well, there's still time. Enough time to meet the woman who is not my wife, the woman who said she would be waiting for me."

________

Michael is from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, nowhere near Prince Edward Island. But he is Canadian, and that was enough for his now wife, Anne. They'd met at a book signing in New York City for the new prequel to Lucy Maud Montgomery's famous novel Anne of Green Gables. "I've been a huge fan since I was ten years old and saw the movie," she'd told him.

He...