Dilemmas.” He pulls her into the corny fox trot he uses to sidestep bad moments. He can’t stand for her to have any. “Heaven,” he sings into her ear, the notes so close they buzz in her ears. “I’m in heaven. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speeeeeak.” He twirls himself out and snaps back in, Gingering her Fred. “And I seem to find the happiness I seek. When we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek.”
They shuffle awhile, which they can do only with a bit of difficulty. In addition to being pregnant, Jesse, at six feet, stands several inches taller than Neal. She stoops a little and stretches her arms and they box-step around the worn floor of the cave.
“We’re doing great,” he tells her.
“We are, aren’t we?” she says, as though his saying it makes it true.
“Sure we are. You’re selling houses like hotcakes. And if we come up a little short, my family can kick in. They’re doing great with the little Balkan circus. They’ve even got winters into the black now, with the clown college. We’ve got prosperity floating all around us. We should save our worries for the hard times. These aren’t them. These are the times we’re going to look back on from the hard times as our golden moments.”
While she’s dancing, Jesse closes her eyes and looks through to their future. There’s she and Neal and Willie and the baby and the camcorder Neal hasn’t bought but surely will, so he can over-record Olivia’s life. There they all are, filling the frame. There’s no room for anything else. Not so much as an inch at the margins for an edgy skywriter.
“I might stay down here a little while,” she says, sitting down on the bench along the wall. “Cool out. You know.”
He nods, and looks at her in a way that makes her see that he knows. Maybe not that it’s Wayne. Maybe not even that it’s someone. But she can tell he feels the displacement of the energy she usually has for him. Maybe he has been putting it down to the pregnancy, to some hormonal flux. But what about after the baby is born? She suddenly feels a flush of sickness, which she hasn’t experienced since the earliest days of her pregnancy. She’s enraged at herself. She doesn’t want the tacit knowledge of her faithlessness—her unspoken confession met by Neal’s unspoken forgiveness—corroding the connection between them.
Once he has left and Jesse is alone, she sits against the wall and tilts her head back so she can look into the blue of the vaulted ceiling. She is feeling her present pressing in on her. She needs to get away. And so she closes her eyes and makes the blue go to aquamarine. This is how it happens. Inside her lids the color gets born again. First in a flat wall, then fragmented, smashed into wavy panes, the way a pool bottom looks when the water is broken by swimmers, shot through with sun. Aquamarine and then the slap of her hand on tile and she’s coming up, shooting out of the water for the hundredth, the thousandth, time.
The color is a straight shot back. From here she can clear the frame of blue-green and let in the dead white. The night before their event, down in the showers. The part she dropped from the story as she told it to Alice Avery. She and Marty lying next to each other on those vast, soft piles of towels. The white tile pulling in moonlight through the open windows, a drip in the near distance—rapid, urgent. And farther off, wild dogs howling through a restless night of their own.
“What?” Jesse hears herself whisper. She is seventeen, with all her stores of curiosity intact.
Marty props herself up on an elbow, so tan she looks black against the backlighting of the tile.
“I broke fifty-nine. Fifty-eight-forty.”
“You lie.”
“I don’t,” Marty says. “That’s the thing. You know I don’t.”
“How come it’s not all over the place, on the gossip lines?”
“It was last night, late. Everyone was gone. Only Ian was with me. He clocked
They shuffle awhile, which they can do only with a bit of difficulty. In addition to being pregnant, Jesse, at six feet, stands several inches taller than Neal. She stoops a little and stretches her arms and they box-step around the worn floor of the cave.
“We’re doing great,” he tells her.
“We are, aren’t we?” she says, as though his saying it makes it true.
“Sure we are. You’re selling houses like hotcakes. And if we come up a little short, my family can kick in. They’re doing great with the little Balkan circus. They’ve even got winters into the black now, with the clown college. We’ve got prosperity floating all around us. We should save our worries for the hard times. These aren’t them. These are the times we’re going to look back on from the hard times as our golden moments.”
While she’s dancing, Jesse closes her eyes and looks through to their future. There’s she and Neal and Willie and the baby and the camcorder Neal hasn’t bought but surely will, so he can over-record Olivia’s life. There they all are, filling the frame. There’s no room for anything else. Not so much as an inch at the margins for an edgy skywriter.
“I might stay down here a little while,” she says, sitting down on the bench along the wall. “Cool out. You know.”
He nods, and looks at her in a way that makes her see that he knows. Maybe not that it’s Wayne. Maybe not even that it’s someone. But she can tell he feels the displacement of the energy she usually has for him. Maybe he has been putting it down to the pregnancy, to some hormonal flux. But what about after the baby is born? She suddenly feels a flush of sickness, which she hasn’t experienced since the earliest days of her pregnancy. She’s enraged at herself. She doesn’t want the tacit knowledge of her faithlessness—her unspoken confession met by Neal’s unspoken forgiveness—corroding the connection between them.
Once he has left and Jesse is alone, she sits against the wall and tilts her head back so she can look into the blue of the vaulted ceiling. She is feeling her present pressing in on her. She needs to get away. And so she closes her eyes and makes the blue go to aquamarine. This is how it happens. Inside her lids the color gets born again. First in a flat wall, then fragmented, smashed into wavy panes, the way a pool bottom looks when the water is broken by swimmers, shot through with sun. Aquamarine and then the slap of her hand on tile and she’s coming up, shooting out of the water for the hundredth, the thousandth, time.
The color is a straight shot back. From here she can clear the frame of blue-green and let in the dead white. The night before their event, down in the showers. The part she dropped from the story as she told it to Alice Avery. She and Marty lying next to each other on those vast, soft piles of towels. The white tile pulling in moonlight through the open windows, a drip in the near distance—rapid, urgent. And farther off, wild dogs howling through a restless night of their own.
“What?” Jesse hears herself whisper. She is seventeen, with all her stores of curiosity intact.
Marty props herself up on an elbow, so tan she looks black against the backlighting of the tile.
“I broke fifty-nine. Fifty-eight-forty.”
“You lie.”
“I don’t,” Marty says. “That’s the thing. You know I don’t.”
“How come it’s not all over the place, on the gossip lines?”
“It was last night, late. Everyone was gone. Only Ian was with me. He clocked
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