‘The Longest Ride’ Chapters 13-15

“She didn’t make you cry.”

She nudged him. “You be nice to your mom or I’ll turn right around and tell her what you’re saying about her.”

“I am nice to my mom.”

“Not always,” she said, half-teasing, half-prodding. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been mad at you.”

+++

When they arrived at his house, he invited her inside for the first time. He went first to the fireplace in the living room, where split wood and kindling were already stacked on the grate. After taking a pack of matches from the mantel, he squatted down to light the kindling.

While he worked on getting the fire going, Sophia’s gaze wandered from the living room to the kitchen, taking in her eclectic surroundings. Low-slung brown leather couches with modern lines were coupled with a rustic coffee table on a cow-skin rug. Mismatched end tables supported matching wrought-iron lamps. Above the fireplace, an antlered buck’s head poked out from the wall. The room was functional and unpretentious, devoid of trophies or awards or laminated articles. Though she spotted a few photos of Luke riding bulls, they were sandwiched between more traditional photos: one of his mom and dad on what she guessed was an anniversary; another photo of a younger Luke and his father holding a fish they’d caught; a photo of his mom and one of the horses, his mom smiling into the camera.

Off to the side, the kitchen was harder to read. Like his mom’s, it featured a table in the center of the room, but the maple cabinets and counters showed little wear. In the opposite direction, the short hallway off the living room led to a bathroom and what she suspected were the bedrooms.

With the fire beginning to blaze, Luke stood and brushed his hands against his jeans.

“How’s that?”

She walked toward the fireplace. “It feels toasty.”

They stood in front of the fire, letting it warm them, before finally moving to the couch. Sitting next to Luke, she could feel him watching her. “Can I ask you a question?” Luke said.

“Of course.”

He hesitated. “Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. When you got here earlier, it seemed like something was bothering you.”

For a moment Sophia said nothing, unsure whether or not to answer. Finally she decided, Why not? and she reached over, lifting his wrist. Knowing what she wanted, he slipped his arm over her shoulder, allowing her to lean against him.

“It was just something Marcia said.”

“About me?”

“Not really. It was more about me. She thinks we’re moving a little fast, and that I’m not emotionally ready for that. She’s convinced I’m on the rebound.”

He pulled back to study her. “Are you?”

“I have no idea,” she admitted. “This is all new to me.”

He laughed before growing more serious. He pulled her close again and kissed her hair. “Yeah, well, if it makes you feel better, all this is new to me, too.”

+++

As the evening wore on, they sat in front of the fire, talking quietly in the familiar way they had since they’d first met. Every now and then the fire made the wood snap, sending sparks up the fireplace, lending the room a cozy, intimate glow.

Sophia reflected that spending time with Luke not only was easy, but felt indefinably right. With him, she could be herself; it felt as though she could say anything to him and that he would intuitively understand. With their bodies nestled close, she felt a sense of wonder at how effortlessly they seemed to fit together.

It hadn’t been like that with Brian. With Brian, she’d always worried that she wasn’t quite good enough; worse, she’d sometimes doubted whether she really knew him. She’d always sensed he put on a facade of sorts, one she’d never been able to breach. She’d assumed that it had been she who was doing something wrong, unintentionally creating barriers between them. With Luke, however, it wasn’t that way. She already felt as if she’d known him most of her life, and their immediate ease made her realize what she’d been missing.

As the fire burned steadily, Marcia’s words continued to fade from her thoughts, until she no longer heard them at all. Whether or not things were moving too fast, she liked Luke and she enjoyed every minute she spent with him. She wasn’t in love with him, but as she felt the gentle rise and fall of his chest, she found it strangely easy to imagine that her feelings might soon begin to change.

Later, when they moved to the kitchen to carve her pumpkin, she felt a distinct pang of regret that the evening was already coming to an end. She stood beside Luke, watching with rapt attention as he slowly but surely brought the jack-o’-lantern to life, the pattern more intricate than the ones she’d always made as a child. On the counter were knives of varying sizes, each with its own use, and she watched as he etched the pumpkin’s grin by carving away the outer shell only, forming what appeared to be lips and teeth. Every now and then he would lean back, assessing his work. The eyes came next; again he carved away the shell, sculpting detailed pupils before carefully cutting away the rest. He grimaced as he reached into the pumpkin to pull out the pieces. “I’ve always hated that slimy feeling,” he said, making her giggle. At last, he handed her the knife, asking if she wanted to take over. Luke showed her where to cut next, explaining what he wanted her to do, the warmth of his body pressed against her making her hands tremble. Somehow, the jack-o’-lantern nose turned out fine, but one of the eyebrows ended up crooked, which added a touch of insanity to its expression.

When the carving was completed, Luke inserted a small tea candle and lit it, then carried the pumpkin out to the porch. They sat in the porch rockers, talking quietly again as the glowing pumpkin grinned in approval. When Luke scooted his chair closer, it was easy for her to picture them sitting together on a thousand other nights like this one. Later, when he walked her to the car, she had the sense that he’d been imagining exactly the same thing. After putting the pumpkin on the passenger seat, he reached for her hand and gently pulled her close. She could sense the desire in his expression; she could feel in his embrace how much he wanted her to stay; and when their lips came together, she knew she wanted to stay as well. But she wouldn’t. Not tonight. She wasn’t ready for that just yet, but she felt in those hungry last kisses the promise of a future that she could barely wait to begin.

Chapter 14

Ira

The late afternoon sun begins to sink below the horizon, and I should be concerned about the coming of night.

But one thought dominates my consciousness.

Water, in any form. Ice. Lakes. Rivers. Waterfalls. Flowing from the faucet. Anything to alleviate the clot that has formed in my throat. Not a lump, but a clot that found its way there from somewhere else, something that doesn’t belong there. It seems to grow with every breath.

I recognize that I have been dreaming. Not about the car wreck. This, the car wreck, is real and I know this. This is the only real thing. I close my eyes and concentrate, forcing myself to remember the details. But in my parched haze, it’s hard to piece together what happened. I’d wanted to avoid the interstate—people drove too fast—and I’d highlighted the route heavy with single-lane highways on a map I’d found in the kitchen drawer. I remember pulling off the highway to get gas and then being momentarily unsure which direction to go. I vaguely recall passing a town called Clemmons. Later, once I realized I’d gotten turned around, I followed a dirt road, finally ending up on another highway called 421. I saw signs for a town called Yadkinville. The weather started to worsen, and by then I was too afraid to stop. Nothing looked familiar, but I kept on following the twists and turns of the highway until I found myself on yet another highway altogether, one that was leading directly into the mountains. I didn’t know the number and by then it didn’t matter because the snow was really coming down. And it was dark, so dark that I did not see the curve. I went through the guardrail and heard the twisting of metal before the car surged down the embankment.

And now: I am alone and no one has found me. I have been dreaming about my wife for almost a day as I lay trapped in the car. Ruth is gone. She died in our bedroom a long time ago and she is not in the seat beside me. I miss her. I have missed her for nine years and spent much of that time wishing that I had been the one to die first. She would have been better at living alone, she would have been able to move on. She was always stronger and smarter and better at everything, and I think again that of the two of us, I made the better choice so long ago. I still don’t know why she chose me. While she was exceptional, I was average, a man whose major accomplishment in life was to love her without reservation, and that will never change. But I am tired and thirsty, and I can feel my strength draining away. It’s time to stop fighting. It’s time to join her, and I close my eyes, thinking that if I go to sleep, I will be with her forever—

“You are not dying,” Ruth suddenly interrupts my thoughts. Her voice is urgent and tense. “Ira. It is not your time yet. You wanted to go to Black Mountain, remember? There is still something you must do.”

“I remember,” I say, but even whispering the words is a challenge. My tongue feels too big for my mouth, and the blockage in my throat has grown larger. It is hard to draw a breath. I need water, moisture, anything to help me swallow, and I need to swallow now. It’s almost impossible to breathe. I try to draw a breath, but not enough air comes in and my heart suddenly hammers in my chest.

Dizziness begins to distort the sights and sounds around me. I am going, I think. My eyes are closed and I’m ready—

“Ira!” Ruth shouts, leaning toward me. She grabs my arm. “Ira! I am talking to you! Come back to me!” she demands.

Even from a distance, I hear her fear, though she is trying to hide it from me. I vaguely feel the shaking of my arm, but it stays frozen in place, another sign that this isn’t real.

“Water,” I croak.

“We will get water,” she says. “For now, you have to breathe, and to do that you must swallow. There is blood clotting in your throat from the accident. It is blocking your airway. It is choking you.”

Her voice sounds thin and distant, and I do not answer. I feel drunk, passing-out drunk. My mind is swimming and my head is on the steering wheel and all I want to do is sleep. To fade away—

Ruth shakes my arm again. “You must not think that you are trapped in this car!” she shouts.

“But I am,” I mumble. Even in my fogginess, I know my arm hasn’t moved at all and that her words are just another trick of my imagination.

“You are at the beach!” Her breath is in my ear, suddenly seductive, a new tack. Her face is so close, I imagine I can feel the brush of her long lashes, the heat of her breath. “It is 1946. Can you remember this? It is the morning after we first made love,” she says. “If you swallow, you will be there again. You will be at the beach with me. Do you remember when you came out of your room? I poured you a glass of orange juice and I handed it to you. I am handing it to you now . . .”

“You’re not here.”

“I am here and I am handing you the glass!” she insists. When I open my eyes, I see her holding it. “You need to drink right now.”

She moves the glass toward me and tilts it toward my lips. “Swallow!” she commands. “It does not matter if you spill some in the car!”

It’s crazy, but it’s the last comment—about spilling in the car—that gets to me most. More than anything, it reminds me of Ruth and the demanding tone she would use whenever she needed me to do something important. I try to swallow, feeling nothing but sandpaper at first and then . . . something else, something that stops my breathing altogether.

And for an instant, I feel nothing but panic.

The instinct to survive is powerful, and I can no more control what happens next than I can control my own heartbeat. At that moment, I swallow automatically, and after that I keep swallowing, the tender soreness giving way to a coppery, acidic taste, and I keep swallowing even after the taste finally passes to my stomach.

Throughout all this, my head remains pressed against the steering wheel, and I continue to pant like an overheated dog until finally my breathing returns to normal. And as my breath returns, so too do the memories.

+++

Ruth and I had breakfast with her parents and then spent the rest of the morning at the beach while her parents read on the porch. Patches of clouds had begun to form on the horizon and the wind had picked up since the day before. As the afternoon wound down, Ruth’s parents strolled down to see whether we would like to join them on an expedition to Kitty Hawk, where Orville and Wilbur Wright made history by flying the first airplane. I had been there when I was young, and though I was willing to go again, Ruth shook her head. She’d rather relax on her last day, she told them.

An hour later, they were gone. By then the sky had turned gray, and Ruth and I meandered back to the house. In the kitchen, I wrapped my arms around her as we stood gazing out the window. Then, without a word, I took her hand and led her to my room.

Though my vision is hazy, I can make out Ruth sitting beside me again. Perhaps it is wishful thinking, but I could swear she’s wearing the robe she’d worn the night we first made love.

“Thank you,” I say. “For helping me catch my breath.”

“You knew what you had to do,” she says. “I am just here to remind you.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“You would have,” she says with certainty. Then, toying with the neckline of her robe, she says almost seductively: “You were very forward with me that day at the beach. Before we were married. When my parents went to Kitty Hawk.”

“Yes,” I admit. “I knew we had hours to ourselves.”

“Well . . . it was a surprise.”

“It shouldn’t have been,” I say. “We were alone and you were beautiful.”

She tugs at the robe. “I should have taken it as a warning.”

“Warning?”

“Of things to come,” she says. “Until that weekend, I was not sure you were . . . passionate. But after that weekend, I sometimes found myself wishing for the old Ira. The shy one, the one who always showed restraint. Especially when I wanted to sleep in.”

“Was I that bad?”

“No,” she says, tilting her head back to gaze at me through heavy-lidded eyes. “Quite the contrary.”

We spent the afternoon tangled in the sheets, making love with even greater passion than the night before. The room was warm, and our bodies glistened with sweat, her hair wet near the roots. Afterward, as Ruth showered, the rain began, and I sat in the kitchen, listening as it pounded against the tin roof, as content as I had ever been.

Her parents returned soon after that, drenched by the downpour. By then, Ruth and I were busy in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Over a simple meal of spaghetti with meat sauce, the four of us sat around the table as her father talked about their day, the conversation somehow segueing as it often did into a discussion about art. He spoke of Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Futurism—words I’d never heard before—and I was struck not only by the subtle distinctions that he drew, but by the hunger with which Ruth devoured every word. In truth, most of it was beyond me, the knowledge slipping through my grasp, but neither Ruth nor her father seemed to notice.

After dinner, once the rain had passed and evening was descending, Ruth and I went out for a walk on the beach. The air was sticky and the sand packed under our feet as I gently traced my thumb along the back of her hand. I glanced toward the water. Terns were darting in and out of the waves, and just past the breakers, a school of porpoises swam by in leaping formation. Ruth and I watched them until they were obscured in the mist. Only then did I turn to face her.

“Your parents will be moving in August,” I finally said.

She squeezed my hand. “They are going to look for a house in Durham next week.”

“And you start teaching in September?”

“Unless I go with them,” she said. “Then I will have to find a job there.”

Over her shoulder, the lights in the house went on. “Then I guess we don’t have much choice,” I said to her. I kicked at the packed sand briefly, drawing up the courage I needed before meeting her eyes. “We have to get married in August.”

+++

At this memory, I smile, but Ruth’s voice cuts through my reverie, her disappointment evident.

“You could have been more romantic,” she tells me, sulking.

For a moment, I’m confused. “You mean . . . with my proposal?”

“What else would I be talking about?” She throws up her hands. “You could have dropped to one knee, or said something about your undying love. You could have formally asked for my hand in marriage.”

“I already did those things,” I said. “The first time I proposed.”

“But then you ended it. You should have started all over. I want to recall the kind of proposal one reads about in storybooks.”

“Would you like me to do that now?”

“It is too late,” she says, dismissing the notion. “You missed your chance.”

But she says this with such flirtatious overtones that I can hardly wait to return to the past.

+++

We signed the ketubah soon after we got home from the beach, and I married Ruth in August 1946. The ceremony was held under the chuppah, as is typical in Jewish weddings, but there weren’t many people in attendance. The guests were mostly friends of my mother’s that we knew from the synagogue, but that was the way both Ruth and I wanted it. She was far too practical for a more extravagant wedding, and though the shop was doing well—which meant I was doing well—both of us wanted to save as much as we could for a down payment on the home we wanted to buy in the future. When I broke that glass beneath my foot and watched our mothers clap and cheer, I knew that marrying Ruth was the most life-changing thing I’d ever done.

For the honeymoon, we headed west. Ruth had never visited that part of the state before, and we chose to stay at the Grove Park Inn resort in Asheville. It was—and still is—one of the most storied resorts in the South, and our room overlooked the Blue Ridge Mountains. The resort also boasted hiking trails and tennis courts, along with a pool that had appeared in countless magazines.

Ruth, however, showed little interest in any of those things. Instead, soon after we arrived, she insisted on heading into town. Madly in love, I didn’t care what we did as long as we were together. Like her, I had never been to this part of the state, but I knew that Asheville had always been a prominent watering hole for the wealthy during the summer months. The air was fresh and the temperatures cool, which is why during the Gilded Age, George Vanderbilt had commissioned the Biltmore Estate, which at the time was the largest private home in the world. Other moneyed Americans followed his lead, and Asheville eventually came to be known as an artistic and culinary destination throughout the South. Restaurants hired chefs from Europe, and art galleries lined the town’s main street.

On our second afternoon in town, Ruth struck up a conversation with the owner of one of the galleries, and that was when I first learned about Black Mountain, a small, almost rural, town just down the highway from where we were honeymooning.

More accurately, I learned about Black Mountain College.

Though I’d lived in the state all my life up to that point, I’d never heard of the college; for most people who spent the rest of the century in North Carolina, a casual mention of the college would elicit blank stares. Now, more than half a century after it closed, there are few people who remember that Black Mountain College even existed. But by 1946, the college was entering a magnificent period—perhaps the most magnificent period of any college, anywhere, at any time, ever—and when we stepped out of the gallery, I could tell by Ruth’s expression that the name of the college was already known to her. When I asked her about it over dinner that night, she told me that her father had interviewed there earlier in the spring and had raved about the place. More surprising to me was that its proximity was one of the reasons she had wanted to honeymoon in the area.

Her expression was animated over dinner as she explained that Black Mountain College was a liberal arts school founded in 1933, whose faculty included some of the most prominent names in the modern art movement. Every summer, there were art workshops—conducted by visiting artists whose names I did not recognize—and as she rattled off the names of the faculty, Ruth grew more and more excited at the thought of visiting the college while we were in the area.

How could I say no?

The following morning, under a brilliant blue sky, we drove to Black Mountain and followed the signs to the college. As fate would have it—and I have always believed it to be fate, for Ruth always swore she knew nothing about it beforehand—an artists’ exhibition was being held in the main building, spilling out onto the lawn beyond. Though it was open to the public, the crowds were relatively sparse, and as soon as we pushed through the doors, Ruth simply stopped in wonder. Her hand tightened around my own, her eyes devouring the scene around her. I watched her reaction with curiosity, trying to understand what it was that had so captivated her. To my eyes, those of someone who knew nothing about art, there seemed to be little difference in the work displayed here from that at any of the countless other galleries we’d visited over the years.

“But there was a difference,” Ruth exclaims, and I get the sense that she still wonders how I could have been so dense. In the car, she is wearing the same collared dress she wore on the day we first visited Black Mountain. Her voice rings with the same sense of wonder I’d witnessed back then. “The work, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was not like the surrealists. Or even Picasso. It was . . . new. Revolutionary. A giant leap of imagination, of vision. And to think that it was all there, at a small college in the middle of nowhere! It was like finding ...”

She trails off, unable to find the word. Watching her struggle, I finish for her.

“A treasure chest?”

Her head snaps up. “Yes,” she immediately says. “It was like discovering a treasure chest in the unlikeliest of places. But you did not understand that yet.”

“At the time, most of the artwork I saw struck me as a collection of random colors and squiggly lines.”

“It was Abstract Expressionism.”

“Same thing,” I tease, but Ruth is lost in the memory of that day.

“We must have spent three hours there, wandering from one work to the next.”

“It was more like five hours.”

“And yet you wanted to leave,” she says reproachfully.

“I was hungry,” I reply. “We didn’t have lunch.”

“How could you even think of food when we were seeing such things?” she asks. “When we had the chance to talk to such amazing artists?”

“I couldn’t understand a thing you said to them. You and the artists were speaking a foreign language. You would talk about intensity and self-denial, while throwing around words like Futurism, Bauhaus, and synthetic Cubism. To a man who sold suits for a living, these words were gibberish.”

“Even after my father explained it to you?” Ruth seems exasperated.

“Your father tried to explain it to me. There’s a difference.”

She smiles. “Then why did you not force me to leave? Why did you not take my arm and steer me to the car?”

This is a question she has wondered about before, whose answer she has never fully understood.

“Because,” I reply as always, “I knew that staying was important to you.”

Unsatisfied, she nonetheless presses on. “Do you recall who we met that first day?” she asks.

“Elaine,” I say automatically. I may not have understood art, but people and faces were within my grasp. “And, of course, we met her husband, too, though we didn’t know then that he would later teach at the college. And then later in the afternoon, we met Ken and Ray and Robert. They were students—or, in Robert’s case, later would be—but you spent a lot of time with them as well.”

By her expression, I know she’s pleased. “They taught me many things that day. I was much better able to understand their primary influences after speaking with them, and it helped me to understand much more about where art would be headed in the future.”

“But you liked them as people, too.”

“Of course. They were fascinating. And each of them was a genius in his own right.”

“Which is why we continued to go back, day after day, until the exhibition closed.”

“I could not let this remarkable opportunity pass. I felt lucky to be in their presence.”

In hindsight, I see that she was right, but at the time all that mattered to me was that her honeymoon be as memorable and fulfilling as I could make it.

“You were very popular with them as well,” I point out. “Elaine and her husband enjoyed having dinner with us. And on the final night of the show, we were invited to that private cocktail party at the lake.”

Ruth, replaying these treasured memories, says nothing for a moment. Her gaze is earnest when she finally meets my eyes.

“It was the best week of my life,” she says.

“Because of the artists?”

“No,” she answers with a tiny shake of her head. “Because of you.”

+++

On the fifth and final day of the exhibition, Ruth and I spent little time together. Not because of any tension between us, but because Ruth was eager to meet even more faculty members, while I was content to wander among the works and chat with the artists we’d already had the chance to get to know.

And then it was over. With the exhibition closed, we devoted the next few days to activities more typical of newlyweds. In the mornings we walked the nature trails, and in the afternoons we read by the pool and went swimming. We ate in different restaurants every evening, and on our last day, after I made a phone call and loaded our suitcases in the trunk, Ruth and I got into the car, both of us feeling more relaxed than we had in years.

Our return trip would bring us past Black Mountain one last time, and as we approached the turnoff on the highway, I glanced over at Ruth. I could sense her desire to return. Deliberately, I took the exit, heading toward the college. Ruth looked at me, her eyebrows raised, obviously wondering what I was doing.

“Just a quick stop,” I said. “I want to show you something.”

I wound through the town and again made a turn she recognized. And just as she’d done back then, Ruth begins to smile.

“You were bringing me back to the lake by the main building,” she says. “Where we attended the cocktail party on the last night of the exhibition. Lake Eden.”

“The view was so pretty. I wanted to see it again.”

“Yes.” She nods. “That is what you said to me back then, and I believed you. But you were not telling the truth.”

“You didn’t like the view?” I ask innocently.

“We were not going there for the view,” she says. “We were going there because of what you had done for me.”

At this, it is my turn to smile.

When we arrived at the college, I instructed Ruth to close her eyes. Reluctantly she agreed, and I took her gently by the arm and walked her down the gravel path that led to the lookout. The morning was cloudy and cool, and the view had been better at the cocktail party, but it really didn’t matter. Once I settled Ruth in exactly the right spot, I told her to open her eyes.

There, on easels, were six paintings, by those artists whose work Ruth had admired most. They were also the artists with whom she’d spent the most time—work by Ken, Ray, Elaine, Robert, and two by Elaine’s husband.

“For a moment,” Ruth says to me, “I did not understand. I did not know why you had set them up for me.”

“Because,” I said, “I wanted you to see the work in the natural light of day.”

“You mean the art that you had bought.”

That was, of course, what I had been doing while Ruth met with the faculty; the phone call that morning had been to make sure the paintings would be set up by the lake.

“Yes,” I say. “The art that I bought.”

“You know what you did, yes?”

I choose my words carefully. “I made you happy?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says. “But you know what I am talking about.”

“That wasn’t why I bought the paintings. I bought them because you were passionate about them.”

“And yet . . .,” she says, trying to make me say it.

“And yet, it didn’t cost me all that much,” I say firmly. “They weren’t who they later became, back then. They were simply young artists.”

She leans toward me, daring me to continue. “And . . .”

I relent with a sigh, knowing what she wants to hear.

“I bought them,” I say, “because I’m selfish.”

+++

I’m not lying about this. Though I bought them for Ruth because I loved her, though I bought them because she’d loved the paintings, I also bought them for me.

Quite simply, the exhibition changed Ruth that week. I had been to countless galleries with Ruth, but during our time at Black Mountain College something inside her was awakened. In a strange way, it magnified a sensual aspect of her personality, amplifying her natural charisma. As she studied a canvas, her gaze would sharpen and her skin would flush, her whole body reflecting a pose of such intense focus and engagement that others couldn’t fail to notice her. For her part, she was completely unaware of how transformed she appeared in those moments. It was why, I became convinced, the artists responded so strongly to her. Like me, they were simply drawn to her, and it was also the reason they had been willing to part with the work I purchased.

This electric, intensely sensual aura would linger long after we left the exhibition and returned to the hotel. Over dinner, her gaze seemed to glitter with heightened awareness, and there was a marked grace to her movements that I hadn’t seen before. I could barely wait to get her back to the room, where she proved especially adventurous and passionate. All I remember thinking is that whatever it was that had stimulated her this way, I wanted it never to end.

In other words, as I’d just told her, I was selfish.

+++

“You are not selfish,” she says to me. “You are the least selfish man I have ever known.”

To my eyes, she looks as stunning as she did on that last morning of the honeymoon, as we stood near the lake. “It’s a good thing I’ve never allowed you to meet another man or you might think differently.”

She laughs. “Yes, you can make a joke. You always liked to play the joker. But I tell you, it was not the art that changed me.”

“You don’t know that. You couldn’t see yourself.”

She laughs again before growing quiet. Suddenly serious, she wills me to pay attention to her words. “This is what I think. Yes, I loved the artwork. But more than the work, I loved that you were willing to spend so much time doing what I loved. Can you understand why that meant so much to me? To know that I had married a man who would do such things? You think it is nothing, but I will tell you this: There are not many men who would spend five or six hours a day on their honeymoon talking to strangers and looking at art, especially if they knew almost nothing about it.”

“And your point is?”

“I am trying to tell you that it was not the art. It was the way you looked at me while I looked at the art that changed me. It is you, in other words, who changed.”

We have had this discussion many times over the years, and obviously we are of different opinions on the matter. I will not change her mind, nor will she change mine, but I suppose it makes no difference. Either way, the honey- moon set in motion a summer tradition that would remain with us for nearly all our lives. And in the end, after that fateful article appeared in The New Yorker, the collection would, in many ways, define us as a couple.

Those six paintings—which I casually rolled and stored in the backseat of the car for the ride back home—were the first of dozens, then hundreds, then more than a thousand paintings that we would eventually collect. Though everyone knows of Van Gogh and Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci, Ruth and I focused on twentieth-century American modern art, and many of the artists we met over the years created work that museums and other collectors later coveted. Artists like Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns and Jackson Pollock gradually became household names, but other, then less well-known artists, like Rauschenberg, de Kooning, and Rothko, also created work that would eventually sell at auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s for tens of millions of dollars, sometimes more. Woman III, by Willem de Kooning, sold for over $137 million in 2006, but countless others, including work by artists like Ken Noland and Ray Johnson, also had sales prices that reached into the millions.

Of course, not every modern artist became famous, and not every painting we bought became exceptionally valuable, but that was never a factor in our decisions about whether or not to buy a piece of art in the first place. These days, the painting I treasure most is worth nothing at all. It was painted by a former student of Ruth’s and hangs above the fireplace, an amateur piece that is special only to me. The New Yorker journalist ignored it completely, and I didn’t bother to tell her why I treasured it, because I knew she wouldn’t understand. After all, she did not understand what I meant when I explained that the monetary value of the art meant nothing to me. Instead, all she seemed to want to know was how we’d been able to select the pieces we did, but even after I explained it, she didn’t seem satisfied.

“Why did she not understand?” Ruth suddenly asks me.

“I don’t know.”

“You said to her what we had always said?”

“Yes.”

“Then what was so difficult about it? I would talk about the ways in which the work affected me . . .”

“And I would simply observe you as you talked,” I finished for her, “and know whether or not to buy it.”

It wasn’t scientific, but it worked for us, even if the journalist was frustrated by this explanation. And on the honeymoon it worked flawlessly, even if neither of us would fully understand the consequences for another fifty years.

It isn’t every couple, after all, who purchases paintings by Ken Noland and Ray Johnson on their honeymoon. Or even a painting by Ruth’s new friend Elaine, whose work now hangs in the world’s greatest museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And, of course, it’s almost impossible to conceive that Ruth and I were able to pick up not only a spectacular painting by Robert Rauschenberg, but two paintings by Elaine’s husband, Willem de Kooning.

Chapter 15

Luke

Although he’d been preoccupied with thoughts of Sophia since the night they’d met, they didn’t compare with the obsession he felt the following day. As he worked on some fencing in the far pasture, replacing posts that had begun to rot away, he occasionally found himself smiling as he thought about her. Even the rain, a cold autumn downpour that left him drenched, did little to dampen his mood. Later, when he had dinner with his mom, she didn’t even attempt to hide a smirk that let him know she was fully aware of the effect that Sophia had on him.

After dinner, he called and they talked for an hour; the next three days followed the same pattern. On Thursday evening, he made the drive to Wake Forest, where they finally had a chance to walk around campus. She showed him Wait Chapel and Reynolds Hall, holding his hand as they strolled through Hearn and Manchester Plazas. It was quiet on campus, the classrooms long since emptied of students. Leaves had already begun to fall en masse, carpeting the ground beneath the trees. In the residence halls, lights were blazing and he heard faint strains of music as students began readying themselves for yet another weekend.

On Saturday, Sophia returned to the ranch. They went for a short ride on horseback, and afterward she followed him around as he worked, lending a hand whenever she could. Again they ate at his mother’s place and then went back to his, the glowing fire as welcoming as it had been the week before. As had become usual, she headed back to the sorority once the fire began to burn lower—she wasn’t yet ready to spend the night with him—but the following day, he drove with her to Pilot Mountain State Park. They spent the afternoon hiking up to Big Pinnacle, where they shared a picnic lunch and took in the view. They’d missed the pageant of autumn color by a week or so, but beneath the cloudless sky, the horizon stretched all the way to Virginia.

In the week following Halloween, Sophia invited Luke back to the sorority. They were having a party on Saturday night. The novelty of his profession and their dating status must have worn off since he’d first shown up at the house, since no one paid him much attention after the initial hellos. He kept a wary lookout for Brian, but he was nowhere to be found. On their way out, he remarked upon it.

“He went to the football game at Clemson,” Sophia told him. “Which made tonight an ideal night to visit.”

The following morning, he returned to the sorority house to pick her up, and they walked around Old Salem, taking in the sights, before returning to the ranch for their third weekend in a row at his mother’s. Later, as they were saying good night beside her car, he asked if she was free the following weekend—he wanted to bring her to the place where he’d vacationed as a child, a place where they could ride trails amid breathtaking views.

Sophia kissed him then and smiled. “That sounds absolutely perfect.”

+++

By the time Sophia arrived at the ranch, Luke had already loaded the horses in the trailer and packed the truck. A few minutes later, they were heading west on the highway, Sophia fiddling with the radio. She settled on a hip-hop station, cranking up the volume until he couldn’t take it any longer and switched to country-western.

“I wondered how long you’d be able to last,” she said, smirking.

“I just think this fits the mood better, what with the horses and all.”

“And I think you just never developed an appreciation for other kinds of music.”

“I listen to other music.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what?”

“Hip-hop. For the past thirty minutes. But it’s a good thing I changed it. I could feel my dance moves coming on, and I’d hate to lose control of the truck.”

She giggled. “I’m sure. Guess what? I bought some boots yesterday. My very own pair. See?” She lifted her feet, preening as he admired them.

“I noticed when I was putting your bag in the truck.”

“And?”

“You’re definitely turning country. Next thing you know, you’ll be roping cattle like a pro.”

“I doubt it,” she said. “There aren’t too many cows wandering around museums as far as I can tell. But maybe you’ll show me how this weekend?”

“I didn’t bring my rope. I did, however, remember to bring you an extra hat. It’s one of my nice ones. I wore it in the PBR World Championships.”

She looked at him. “Why do I sometimes get the sense you’re trying to change me?”

“I’m just offering . . . improvements.”

“You better be careful, or I’ll tell my mom what you said. Right now, I’ve got her believing you’re a nice guy, and you’ll want to stay on her good side.”

He laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“So tell me where we’re going. You said you used to go there as a boy?”

“My mom discovered it. She was out this way trying to drum up business, and she just kind of stumbled on it. It used to be a struggling summer camp, but the new owners got it in their heads that if they opened it up to riders, they could fill the rooms all year long. They made some improvements on the cabins and added some horse stalls in the back of each one, and my mom fell in love with the place. You’ll see why when we get there.”

“I can’t wait. But how did you get your mom to agree to let you take off the whole weekend?”

“I got most everything done before I left and I offered José a little extra to come in to help while I’m gone. She’ll be in good shape.”

“I thought you said there’s always something to do.”

“There is. But it’s nothing my mom can’t handle. No emergencies pending.”

“Does she ever get to leave the ranch?”

“All the time. She tries to visit our customers at least once a year and they’re all over the state.”

“Does she ever take a vacation?”

“She’s not big on vacations.”

“Everyone needs a break now and then.”

“I know. And I’ve tried to tell her that. I even bought her cruise tickets once.”

“Did she go?”

“She returned the tickets and got a refund. The week she was supposed to go, she drove to Georgia to check out a bull that was for sale, and she ended up buying him.”

“To ride?”

“No. For breeding. He’s still out there, by the way. Mean cuss. But he gets the job done.”

She pondered this information. “Does she have friends?”

“Some. And she still visits them from time to time. For a while, she was in a bridge club with a few ladies from town. But lately, she’s been trying to figure out how to increase the size of the herd and that’s been taking a lot of her time. She wants to add another couple hundred pair, but we don’t have enough pasture, so she’s trying to find a place for us to keep them.”

“Why? She doesn’t think she’s busy enough already?”

He shifted hands on the steering wheel before sighing.

“Right now,” he said, “we don’t have much choice.”

He could feel Sophia’s questioning gaze, but he didn’t want to talk about it and he changed the subject. “Are you going to be heading home for Thanksgiving?”

“Yes,” she said. “Assuming my car makes it. There’s a loud squeaking-whining sound when I start it. The engine sounds like it’s screaming.”

“It’s most likely just a loose belt.”

“Yeah, well, it’ll probably be expensive to fix and I’m kind of on a budget.”

“If you’d like, I can probably take care of it.”

She turned toward him. “Why do I have no doubt about that?”

+++

It took a little over two hours to reach the camp, the sky slowly filling with clouds that stretched to the blue-peaked mountains that dotted the horizon. In time, the highway began to rise, the air thinning and turning crisp, and they eventually stopped at a grocery store to pick up supplies. Everything went into the coolers in the bed of the truck.

Luke exited the main highway after leaving town, following a road that curved steadily and seemed carved into the mountain itself. It dropped off steeply on Sophia’s side, the tops of trees visible through the windows. Fortunately there was little traffic, but whenever a car passed in the opposite direction, Luke had to grip the wheel with both hands as the trailer’s wheels skirted the very edge of the asphalt.

Not having visited in years, he slowed the truck, searching for the turnoff, and just when he started thinking that he’d gone too far, he spotted it off the curve. It was a dirt road, even steeper in places than he remembered, and he put the truck into overdrive as he navigated slowly past trees that were pressing in from both sides.

When he reached the camp, his first thought was that it hadn’t changed much, with twelve cabins spreading out in a semicircle from the general store, which also doubled as the office. Behind the store was the lake, sparkling with the kind of crystal blue water found only in the mountains.

After checking in, Luke unloaded the coolers and filled the water trough for the horses while Sophia wandered off toward the ravine. She took in the view of the valley more than a thousand feet below, and when Luke finished up, he joined her near the ravine, their vision wandering from one mountaintop to the next. Below them was a collection of farmhouses and gravel roads lined by oaks and maples, everything looking miniaturized, like models in a diorama.

As they stood together, he noticed the same wonder on her face he’d felt whenever he came here as a child. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she murmured, awestruck. “It makes me feel breathless.”

He stared at her, wondering how she’d come to mean so much to him so quickly. Studying the graceful outline of her profile, he was certain he’d never seen anyone more beautiful.

“I was thinking exactly the same thing.”

From The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks. Copyright © 2013 by Willow Holdings, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc., New York, NY, U.S.A. All rights reserved.