Chapter 61

• RED
• I arrive in Charleston in mid-morning. There are so many more trees than I remembered, many of them adorned with beautiful gray moss. Water spreads out around the city like an obsidian plate of glass. The historic homes—Federal style, Queen Anne, Italianate—are painted in pastels, and arranged in neat rows along lamp-lit sidewalks. The day is overcast, with dark gray clouds like rain, so some of the lamps are already glowing.
• I drive around, reacquainting myself with iron-gated cemeteries and sprawling plantation homes. Finally, at about 3:30 p.m., I stop at a little local produce store and ask about the Briar Bay boat dock, which I’m told is in a cove near Dill Creek, on the James Island side of Charleston Harbor. I head across the Ashley River, find a shrimp shack, and spend the next hour and a half eating and obsessively checking my phone. I fire off a quick e-mail telling Gertrude I’ll be the girl with long, red hair, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved gray t-shirt.