Sweetheart, I know things didn’t go well on that trip to Maine, and I’m really sorry about that. But please don’t forget all the good times we’ve had, because we’ve had a ton more of them than bad times. The ski trips we took last winter. Tobogganing in the park. Building snowmen. Hot chocolate with marshmallows. Reading e. e. cummings. Popsicle stick sailboats on rainy days. The prom. The beach on senior cut day. I could go on and on. Seriously, we both know there’s been much much more good than bad. Let’s give it another chance, okay? What we’ve built together is far too important to let crumble. Believe me, I’m ready to do what needs to be done.

Love you forever,

Lucas

Monday, August 4

Lou Wilkinson has taken a shine to me. The fact that I showed up in the paterfamilias’s British-made MG appears to mean that we are kindred spirits who appreciate the finer, and quirkier, aspects of British automotive engineering. Hungry for any kind of distraction from the empty gloom of a Robinless existence, I fall into a routine with him. Each afternoon after work, I sit in Lou’s hot, stuffy showroom office for five or ten minutes while he bitches about the cheap “Jap” Honda and Yamaha cycles flooding the market. Motorcycles that “lack pedigree and gravitas.” Then he lets me take the BSA out to the lot for a practice session.

Entering the showroom this afternoon, I pass a familiar-looking, heavyset man in a blue blazer on his way out. We share a brief nod. Where have I seen him before?

Lou is polishing the silver fender of a cycle with drooping handlebars. “Beauty, isn’t she?” he says. “A forty-eight Vincent Black Shadow. One of the fastest bikes ever built. Just came in this morning. You don’t see many in this condition.”

I point back to the showroom entrance. “Was he interested?”

“Mr. Brown? Oh, yes. Quite the collector of fine British motoring. Comes by now and then when I’ve got something interesting. Hopefully he’ll snap this up before someone else does. I believe he was a colonel in the war, stationed in London. Something to do with military intelligence.” Lou pauses, then drops his voice. “Always considered that a bit of an oxymoron.”

I’ve heard that one before but smile obsequiously. Maybe Mr. Brown looked familiar because I’ve seen him here?

“Actually, I believe he’s still involved in the service somehow,” Lou goes on. “Came back to the States and got into real estate. Electrical engineering, if I’m not mistaken. Made a fortune wiring those cookie-cutter houses that popped up all over Long Island after the war.” Lou puts his hand on my shoulder. “Well, now, lad. Shall we complete our transaction?”