At the planetarium
They took the girls to the planetarium. Leaning her head back to take in the night sky, she remembered the farm where they lived in their last year at school, their first as a couple. It was the remnant of a much larger estate, still farmed by two siblings who lived there year round, having squandered their inheritances when younger. Brutal in the winter, when she ran alongside the tracks to get to class without freezing, but in the spring, they walked its 1,300 acres (as the brother sibling told them), sometimes at night, making love, as they thought of it, and then, lying together, took the heavens in.
Men came on to her like dogs in heat, each assuming his attractiveness. It felt out of place with her studies, but many of her classmates felt entitled. Then she took a class on poetry. He was the TA, a scholarship boy who loved the subject. That he wrote poetry went unmentioned. The drift of poetry then was Lou Reed’s machinery, what he later called algorithmic avant la lettre. His patron. an older sort of poet, brought his sources to life. He wasn’t at all wary of their influence. The three of them are still friends.
She was struck by his lack of presumption and his hesitation. Was he gay? No, he wasn’t, but he’d been burned a bit. That wasn’t something he ever talked about, but there it was in his poems when he finally shared them. In time, so was she and so were they, this family they made from scratch.
In the summer, they rented a house with two other couples. That it was coming up threw a wrench into her spring sabbatical. At first, she gave a fuck, although she saw how her absences undid him. By midterms, she saw he’d picked up the slack, rallying himself to fill in, papering over it all with hope, she guessed, despite the fallout of her trying to juggle her work and parallel life. The man had his own tracks to cover, but was better at it. “Do we go in on the place again?” was the question. Yes, she said. Yes.
He was surprised, but she was more so. He can always take the kids while I enjoy myself: the wantonness of this thought briefly revived her sense of transgression, but then it faded again. It wasn’t like he was going off into the wilderness. These were their friends and they would talk.
Hope can be very much day by day, hour by hour. She never knew how it would go, improvising as she did. Something he did or said brought out her affection for him and they would make love, as she still thought of it. “Don’t get your hopes up!” she wanted to blurt out, but was this just her parallel life trying to keep its own alive? What did she really want? Summer in town is hard to bear, the children out of school and the atmosphere often fetid. Upstate, there was a lake, paths and lanes safe to walk or bike on, and the urbanity of their circle. Her clients went to Amagansett or further out, but that would be work, she felt, having to look good for them. She needed to be far away.
The man was like the dogs of their college days, but older and smoother. He caught her when she was fed up, which was odd, wasn’t it? Maybe seeing it is part of their deal, knowing when to move in, a skill they lacked at school, at least with her. There he was, the necessary man. Now summer loomed.
Parallel lives are a lot of work, so he appeared relieved. By autumn, though, he was obsessed, a downside of her being good in bed? She told him to pull himself together. He looked like damaged goods, but agreed to stop. “I’m seeing a therapist,” he added. She didn’t really believe in them, but fine.
The lights came up slowly, like early morning in the country. They looked at the dinosaurs and he noted how parts of this barn of a place were like a decorative arts museum. They bought ice cream cones on the sidewalk and took the subway back. The girls talked about the constellations, those stories. Their schools had reopened, the city was already crisper. Their friends called with dinner invitations. The New Yorker took his new poem.
